


More Than Just Binary

by Maharani_Radha



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempt at Humor, Droid Programmer!Reader, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Gratuitous sarcasm, Humor, Ignores most of the plot in the sequel trilogy, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren Has No Chill, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Kylo Ren is kind of an asshole, Romance, Slow Burn, Snarky Reader, arrogant reader, but reader eventually grows to like him, lots of swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 51,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22231132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maharani_Radha/pseuds/Maharani_Radha
Summary: You're a slightly arrogant, perpetually annoyed droid programmer working for the First Order. Despite your skills being in high demand, your job required little to no human interaction and that is just how you liked it-thank you very much. It most certainly did not require interaction with any of the higher-ups (except for General Shithead)......That is until the Supreme Leader (really, what a ridiculous title) Kylo Ren, after ordering you to create brand-new training droids for him to destroy, decides he likes you. And thus is the beginning of his unholy interest in your life.Those extra chocolate chip muffins that Hux promised you better be worth it.
Relationships: Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Reader, Kylo Ren/Reader
Comments: 174
Kudos: 369





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends. This is my first attempt at fanfiction, let alone Star Wars fanfiction. I've had this plot bunny hopping around in my head for the past couple of days, and finally decided to put pen to paper. Let's see how this goes. Feel free to shred (within reason of course).
> 
> Try not to take this more seriously than it should be taken.

**Beep!**

_No_

**Beeep!**

_No!_

**Beeeeeeep!**

_Goddammit no!!!_

**BEEEEEEEEEPPPPPP!!!!**

“Son of a bantha!” you grumbled, while slamming the button on your holopad. You glanced at the time, hoping that maybe you’d be able to catch an additional fifteen minutes of shuteye. Alas, it was only 06:30. If you didn’t move your ass now, not only would you be late for work, you definitely wouldn’t get the coveted muffin in the cafeteria. It was the long-awaited Chocolate Chip Muffin Day (no you had not penciled this into your calendar and set a specific alarm for this momentous occasion), and you would be damned if those stupid storm troopers got there before you and ate them all.

You got up, dragging your tired self into the refresher. The cold water startled you awake, and you quickly dressed in your dull, black First Order uniform before heading down the hallway towards the cafeteria. As you walked, you mentally went over the multitude of tasks you undoubtedly had to accomplish by the end of the day or face the wrath of General ~~Stick-up-his-ass~~ Hux. But honestly, Hux didn’t scare you. Sure, the man tried his best to intimidate the crap out of you, but you knew better. He couldn’t fire you. You were ~~one of~~ the best droid programmer the First Order had to offer. In fact, you were so good, plenty of other droid programmers, including more senior ones, would come to you with their problems. Thankfully for you, you had a bunch of trained underlings to triage those concerns and work on them (since everyone else on this damn ship seemed so incompetent). Very few of those issues actually made it to your desk—leaving you free to, for lack of a better word, fuck around with wires and stuff. All on the First Order’s dime. Fantastic.

Entering the cafeteria, you were relieved to see that the line was not terribly long. But nothing in life is free—to quote an old earthling (‘Terran’, you corrected yourself, ‘that’s the most politically correct term these days, the stupid snowflakes. I’m an earthling, and _I’m_ not offended.’) phrase. Cecil from the weapons division was in front of you and, because the Force hates you, he had noticed you.

“Hey there, old friend! How’s it hangin’?” he said, with an obnoxiously large grin.

Your job didn’t require much human interaction, and that was exactly how you preferred it. It was pretty easy to hide and avoid people you didn’t like on a ship as big as the _Finalizer_. But sadly, the cafeteria was one of those places where running into imbeciles like Cecil—who had recently taken up a very annoying interest in ancient Terran slang, particularly from the era of the 1980s—was entirely possible. Cecil was human, yes, but he wasn’t from Earth. In fact, you were one of the few Terrans in the entire First Order. This made sense given that Earth was in a completely different galaxy (the fact that it was in the closest galaxy to this one was beside the point). Very few people from the Milky Way even left it, let alone came to a new galaxy and joined the First Order. It seemed logical that other fellow humans and humanoids were curious about you and the big, blue space ball from where you hailed. It didn’t make it any less annoying.

You gave Cecil a curt smile, and returned his stupid greeting with a polite, “Good morning.”

Cecil continued with his big, ridiculous grin. “I’m SO excited for these chocolate chip muffins!”

Well, you couldn’t blame him. So were you. The little things in life mattered on a place as big and monotonous as the _Finalizer_. But unlike Sir Cecil the Chatterbox, you weren’t about to announce it to the rest of the world.

He began launching into a story that was undoubtedly very interesting in the tiny expanse of his brain. You put on your neutral I’m-not-allowed-to-insult-you face, and tuned him out, instead focusing on grabbing your muffin (“Victory is mine!”), a banana, and a caf. Cecil, apparently still not finished with his story, followed you to a table and proceeded to continue to chat your ears off for the next fifteen minutes. Just as you were about to politely excuse yourself and head to your lab a little early, Cecil asked you a question that actually required a response beyond the occasional “mmhmm” and “wow, no I didn’t know that, thank you for enlightening me.”

“So did you hear about Kylo Ren?” he asked.

You tried not to groan. Any day where you didn’t have to hear about (or on one very fleeting, yet memorable, occasion—see) Kylo Ren was a good day. General Hux didn’t scare you, but his direct superior, the Supreme Leader of the First Order most certainly did. Kylo Ren was an intimidating individual. His powers with the Force were a sight to behold and frightening enough in and of themselves. But that wasn’t what scared you about him. It wasn’t even that magical glowing death stick thing he carried around. But rather that the wielder of said magical-glowing- death-stick-thing occasionally had the mental capacity of a three-year-old.

You had personally never witnessed one of these legendary tantrums (thank the stars), but your services were almost always required during the inevitable fallout. On more than one occasion, your precious droids (really, they were like the children you were never going to have) had fallen victim to the laser pointer of doom. Just a few months ago your favorite protocol droid, Rod Serling, was sent to deliver a message to the Supreme Leader from General Hux. Apparently HRH hadn’t liked what was on said message and decided to unleash his anger on poor, unsuspecting Rod. It had taken you a good three weeks to repair the damage, and although you got him up and running again (because you were you, of course you did), Rod Serling was never the same.

“What about Kylo Ren?” you asked, nibbling at the remnants of your muffin.

“Apparently, he destroyed all of his training droids!” Cecil exclaimed.

You barely refrained from rolling your eyes. Well _that_ certainly wasn’t new. On any given week, Ren destroyed at least 10 to 15 of those droids. Maybe upwards of 20 on a bad week. Your division was constantly making and replacing them given how said Prince of DarknessTM loved to take out his aggression on those droids. But that was all well and good—that was the point of those droids. They were supposed to be expendable.

“So? He does that all the time,” you said.

“Yeah sure, but this time he went absolutely crazy. He destroyed all the ones in stock! And now it sounds like your division is scrambling to get more made!”

Well that certainly sucked for those that worked on the training droids. That wasn’t your job, and therefore not your problem. But you did feel bad for the poor suckers who probably didn’t have much time to put together an entire army of new droids for sacrifice.

“Ren is super angry that these droids don’t last long enough,” Cecil continued, “I heard that he wants droids that actually _fight back_ rather than just shoot at him. And he wants them now or those programmers are screwed!”

Again, that definitely sucked for the training droid engineers.

“Sounds like quite the predicament they’re in,” you said, finishing off your caf, “I certainly hope they get that figured out fast. Now, my apologies for running off on you Cecil, but I have several matters to attend to this morning. Have a pleasant rest of your day.”

You dumped your trash and headed towards the exit with Cecil calling out an overly cheery, “See ya later, alligator!” Dear lord (Force, you’re not on Earth anymore), has Cecil ever even _seen_ an alligator? Granted, neither had you, at least not in the wild. It was definitely not something you wanted to “see later.” Really, your planet had the strangest phrases.

.  
.  
.  
.  
.

When you arrived in your lab, you were immediately accosted by your head ~~minion~~ assistant, Max—a tough young lady who took no shit from anyone, including the General of Shit himself. You loved her. She made your life easier.

“Ma’am, I know you have a pretty full calendar this morning, but unfortunately General Hux wishes to see you.”

Oh great, you were still about fifteen minutes from your shift officially starting and already the asshole required your presence. You sighed and rubbed your forehead. This was going to be a long day, and you had only had one cup of caf.

“Is he meeting me here or do I need to track him down?”

“He just told me to send him a message when you’d arrived. I’m assuming you’re clear to stay here until he has time to see you.”

Great, at least you could get some work done in the process. You entered your office where the disemboweled guts of another protocol droid, Martin McFly, awaited you. The poor droid. He kept malfunctioning for some reason. He had developed some ~~totally expected~~ odd deviation where he would occasionally swear or insult someone he felt was being stupid. You couldn’t imagine where he got that particular quirk from. ***insert sarcasm here*** Either way, Hux hated it and demanded that you ‘fix’ it. So you made a show of taking the poor dear apart and trying to repair whatever crossed wire had caused said issue. In reality, you were just going to upgrade him with as much weapon-proof coating as you could.

After about an hour of you tinkering with Marty, the cause of said work decided to Grace you with His exalted Presence. You pretended to not notice him until he, annoyed, cleared his throat.

“Yes, sir?” you asked, not looking up from your work.

“If you don’t mind, there is a matter that requires your urgent attention.”

You certainly did mind. Most of Hux’s urgent matters weren’t all that urgent, or could be handled by your ~~minions~~ assistants. But you humored him, and finally looked up from your work.

“Yes, how may I help you, sir?”

Hux heaved a large sigh. You didn’t like the man, but even you, who were generally a gigantic, uncaring asshole, were slightly concerned. He looked exhausted and very stressed.

“It appears that the Supreme Leader has destroyed all of his training droids. He is demanding more immediately.”

Oh, so it appears that Cecil wasn’t totally full of shit. Huh. Who knew.

“So I’ve heard,” you mumbled, “But may I ask why you have brought this matter to my attention? Making training droids is—” _completely beneath your capabilities, insulting really_ “—not exactly what I do here.”

Hux, to be fair, looked as though he didn’t want to deal with this any more than you did. “Yes, I know. I am sorry to bother you with this, but Ren is rather insistent on having new droids. Not just any kind of droid, but one that gives him a challenge. He wants one that actually ‘fights back rather than shooting at him.’ I’ve already asked your colleague in the training droid group, and he says he has no idea how to go about it.”

That wasn’t surprising. Jennix, the head of the training droid engineers, was actually a very good engineer, but this was not the world’s easiest ask. Jennix specialized in assembly-line engineering—he was very good at optimizing the process of mass producing droids. Actually creating new droids from scratch was not in his wheelhouse.

To be fair to Jennix, even if you managed to successfully design and build a protoype of a droid that would fit the Supreme Leader’s lofty expectations, there was no guarantee that he’d be able to produce them fast enough. This was not going to be a fun endeavor.

You sighed and turned back to Hux. “Did the Supreme Leader happen to give any more specific details of what he wants the droids to do.”

Hux’s resultant eyeroll was answer enough. Of course not. Oh well, it never hurt to ask, you supposed. “What’s my timeline?” you asked. You were not optimistic about having enough time to accomplish any of this.

“The Supreme Leader left for a mission earlier this morning. He is estimated to return in about 7 cycles’ time. Although depending on how successful he is, it could be fewer. So I’d suggest you get to work.”

Fan-fucking-tastic


	2. Chapter 2

You weren’t a religious person. You had never really been, even back on Earth despite your mother’s attempts to get you to “see the light.” So being around people who believed in some holy-ghost-esque thing called the Force was definitely something you had to get used to while working for the First Order. (You supposed that Kylo Ren’s ability to choke someone without laying a hand on them helped purge you of your doubt).

However, just because you weren’t religious didn’t mean you were above calling upon any old idle, bored deity to help you with the gargantuan task General Fuckboi had set you....said task which had taken a turn from pretty difficult to slightly-maybe impossible.

It’s not that you didn’t have an idea of how to solve this problem. Oh no, you knew exactly what to do (because you were you, of course you did).

It’s just that said solution required getting information that you didn’t have access to.

In fact, nobody had access to it.

Except Kylo Ren.

You were really hoping you didn’t have to interact with him. Sighing, you paged your assistant on your holopad, and within about ten seconds Max had appeared.

“Max, does the Supreme Leader have surveillance cameras in his training rooms?”

Max looked at you as though you had just spontaneously combusted and out from your ashes rose a Wookie. To be fair to Max, your query was ridiculous. To be even fairer to Max, unlike most morons, she knew exactly where you were going with this TIE-fighter of thought.

“I—I would assume so, ma’am. May I ask why you would need the footage from the cameras?”

Clever Max. If you come out of this with your head still vaguely attached to your body, you will ~~demand~~ request that General Hux clone her as a thank-you. You took a deep breath and continued.

“The Supreme Leader has asked us to created training droids that give him a challenge, that fight back. I interpret this to mean that he wants training droids who can analyze his combat skills and respond accordingly, as a person might do. Problem is, I have never seen Ren in combat, so I have no idea what his strengths and weaknesses are—” _assuming that bastard HAD any weaknesses_ “—so being able to assess and analyze his technique would be immensely useful to me in developing the program.”

Max raised her eyebrows. “That’s definitely very clever, ma’am. I suppose the only barrier would be—”

“How I get the footage,” you mumbled, darkly. “Do you think General Hux would have that kind of security clearance?”

“He could but Supreme Leader Ren is a very private man. There’s a high chance that the General would have no idea how to access it either.”

Great.

“Max, please send Hux a message with my request. We’ll see if he can be useful first. And if he can’t, we’ll just have to figure it out I suppose. I will take full responsibility for whatever comes of this—situation.”

Max turned a slight shade of green and nodded. She walked out of your office, rapidly composing the message to Hux on your behalf. You leaned back in your chair and rubbed your temples.

.

.

.

.

.

So much had happened today, you mused, as you made your way to the cafeteria. You had had to deal with Cecil’s bullshit, Hux’s horseshit, and now Kylo Ren’s banthashit, and it was only noon (according to your internal Earth clock—technically, you were halfway through the cycle). As you sat down with the day’s inedible “mystery meat” stew (may Satan have mercy on your soul), you saw you had a message from Hux on your holopad. You scoffed at the general’s curt message of _‘Are you crazy?’_ Clearly the fuckboi wasn’t going to help you, and you were now back to square one.

Somewhere on Earth, your PhD advisor was laughing her ass off. _‘If things don’t work in your favor,’_ she had one said, _‘you have to make them work in your favor.’_ You were certain that she had never envisaged you having to ask a homicidal manchild for permission to—well—snoop on him. But considering the fact that your former advisor joined a coven and hexed the department head for denying her tenure application, anything goes.

As you were contemplating to yourself, your counterpart from the _actual_ training droid department plopped down in the chair across from you, a look of pity on his blueish face. You weren’t exactly sure what species Jennix was (and frankly, you didn’t really care), but if there was one thing that was universal, it was the ‘you-are-so-incredibly-fucked-I-don’t-even-know-where-to-begin’ look.

“So,” Jennix began, stirring the mystery meat (if you had to guess, it was probably some poor officer that had gotten on Ren’s bad side—waste not, want not, you supposed) around in his bowl, “Heard you got saddled with Supreme Headache Number 1.”

“Yup,” you said, ripping off part of your dinner roll and considering dunking it in the soup, but then then thinking the better of it, “Don’t worry though, I’ll figure it out. It will be fine.”

Jennix gave you a very skeptical look. He was probably the only person on this ship with the credentials to call you out on your self-aggrandizement, let alone the audacity. Even Hux never did that. As much as you were loath to admit it, you admired Jennix for it.

“You sure about that?” he asked.

“Of course!”

Jennix rolled his black eyes. “So what’s your plan then? You don’t have a lot of time to get this figured out.”

You sighed and told Jennix of your idea to use Kylo Ren’s surveillance footage for your program. Jennix raised his eyebrows (?) at you and then began to laugh.

“Oh that’s rich,” he said, “There is no way in the galaxy you are going to get your hands on that kind of information, and that’s assuming it even exists.” You gave Jennix a hard stare. You did not appreciate being laughed at, especially when you were being entirely serious, and you told him so.

“I’m being serious too,” he said. “Look, I think you’re an arrogant nerfherder, but I like you. You’re the closest thing I have to a friend in this awful place—”

Well that was awfully kind of him. You wish you could reciprocate the sentiment, but you didn’t do _friends._ You had _colleagues,_ and potentially _acquaintances_. But not friends.

“—so I’m going to say this,” he said, “The Supreme Leader is not someone you should be crossing. If you do, you’ll end up decapitated if you’re lucky. Exactly how were you planning on obtaining said footage, assuming once again, that you go through with this ridiculously stupid plan of yours?”

Well, you were most certainly _not_ going to approach Kylo with this, so you figured you had one option left.

“I’ll hack it,” you said. And you watched Jennix’s eyes grow in shock while he dropped his spoon into his mystery meat stew. “Yes, I’ll just have to hack the security cams. It shouldn’t be that difficult.”

Jennix looked like he was going to faint.

“You are actually crazy. Certifiably insane. Dear Force, I wish you hadn’t told me this—that way I’d at least have some plausible deniability when this shit inevitably goes completely, horribly wrong. Please, please tell me you are joking. I actually cannot believe what I’m hearing right now.”

You were being completely, 100% serious. You were actually going to _hack_ the Supreme Leader’s personal surveillance cameras.

Somewhere in nirvana, your mother rematerialized to grasp her proverbial pearls and pray for your eternally damned soul.

.

.

.

.

.

Despite your massive ego and potential overestimate of your abilities, you were fully aware that _hacking_ the personal surveillance cameras of Kylo Ren, the Supreme Leader of the First Order, the wielder of the laser-pointer-of-doom, the incarnation of Hades himself, was not going to be an easy task. And assuming that you managed to accomplish this task, if you were found out, you would absolutely be incinerated. No questions asked. You tilted your head. It’s not that you had a death wish, but ---

If you succeeded and nobody found you out, you could build these training droids, not die, and carry on with your life. If you were found out and did subsequently go meet your maker, it would certainly answer a lot of burning questions about mortality.

Hmm—it would even guarantee that General Asshole would leave you alone.

Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

You were fairly certain, however, that the Force wouldn’t let you off the hook that easily. With your shit luck, you’d run into your mom again, and while you weren’t one to speak ill of the dead, she was definitely ~~very~~ sort of annoying in life. You certainly didn’t want to experience an eternity of purgatory with her.

When had you become quite the sociopath? You shrugged. Oh well. Existential crises (if this could even be called one, given your alarming level of nonchalance) could wait. Making an attempt to preserve your puny life should theoretically come first.

You turned to your very Professional Hacking Setup in the small corner of your office. You had instructed your underlings (you weren’t going to bother trying to label them as assistants anymore—you’d tried and failed) not to disturb you for the next several hours. Max was currently standing guard outside your door, none the wiser about what you were going to do (which was probably better for her general wellbeing). You cracked your neck and set to work.

First thing’s first—try to set up some untraceable trail. At the very least, you needed to bounce your electronic signature off of enough satellites and control towers to make it very difficult to trace the source back to you. You scrambled your signal as best you could and began setting up a path for your signature to travel, trying to maximize the amount of time it would give you to access the footage. This was a pretty tedious task, and it took you a good hour to set it up completely. You really couldn’t be too careful here.

Now came the tricky part—actually accessing the cameras without tripping any kind of alarm or failsafe and downloading the footage. This turned out to be easier than you had thought (and by ‘easier’ you meant that you could probably accomplish this task in maybe six hours as opposed the ten you had predicted). Working as diligently as you could through the night, you hoped that Max had gone back to her quarters at some point. Just because you had to stay up so late doesn’t mean that she needed to.

It was pretty late (or early, depending on your point of view) in the cycle, only about three or four hours away from your next shift, before you made a breakthrough. You were finally past the ridiculous number of firewalls surrounding the Supreme Leader’s security system. Despite the amount of work it took you (and you were a damn good hacker), you were surprised that it had been as simple as it was. You supposed that you were the only individual in the universe manic enough to actually hack the Ren’s security cameras, but still. You quickly checked your monitor and saw that you only had about fifteen minutes before the signature masking algorithm failed and your location would be broadcast for all to see—kind of like Ren’s photon sword thing.

“Jesus-fucking-Christ!” You swore, using an oath you had never once used before and you were fairly certain some sky dude would smite you where you stood if Kylo Ren didn’t get to you first. You didn’t have much time and you were about to download multiple terabytes of data. In fact, you had no time at all—you were going to have to pick the footage you wanted.

Now you were normally a calm, collected person. But frankly, this called for panic. You had spent all this time trying to hack into Ren’s systems and you didn’t once think to check if you were—oh shucks—going _fast enough_. Frantic, you selected a few random dates and downloaded the footage. You were cutting it down to the wire; your download clock read 13.5 minutes and you had 14. And all you could do was sit there and wait. 

.

.

.

.

.

You flopped on your bed the moment you entered your quarters, marveling at exactly how close you had come to being caught. With fifteen seconds to spare (thanks to a minor hiccup in the download process), you had managed to grab the footage you need and shut the entire operation down. By the slimmest margin, you had avoided detection—and potential death.

But that didn’t mean you wouldn’t be found out after the fact. You pushed your datapad down onto your nightstand and focused on your breathing, trying to calm your racing heart. It had been about twenty minutes since you bolted from your office, and nobody had sounded the alarm just yet. In fact, none of the night crew had even spared you a second glance. Perhaps you were in the clear for now. The best course of action would be to try to get some sleep.

Which was a lot easier said than done. You had done a great job managing your anxiety up to this point, but there were days (like today, obviously) where you just couldn’t get your stupid brain to shut the fuck up. So you just lay staring at your ceiling wondering exactly what Kylo Ren looked like under his stupid ~~garbage can~~ helmet, and hoping that maybe he’d give you the honor of seeing his face as he took his red photon sword and sliced your head off. You tried closing your eyes, hoping that maybe not having anything to look at would encourage your brain to get bored and just shut off for the next few hours.

But alas, your life is not that simple. You could only wish it were. But you did kind of ask for this, joining the First Order. You could have easily stayed on earth and worked for the heir to the Zucc Empire or something and never had to worry about maniacs with their giant laser pointers.

Shut up brain, focus.

Your holopad had beeped with a message. Rubbing your hands over your face, you turned on the light and squinted at it.

It was from Hux.

_“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”_

Your blood turned to ice. The general hated using all capitals. He was a stickler for proper spelling, grammar, etc. Which means he was pissed.

Or scared out of his mind. Which means that he knew. Which means that someone had caught you. Which means that you had been a sloppy amateur.

You were so fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all of you who have sent comments and kudos so far! I'm having a great time with this fic, and am looking forward to continuing to work on it. Let me know how you're liking it, and if you have any suggestions, by all means please make them.
> 
> A reminder once again to please take this with a mine of salt.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! Thanks to all of you who have liked, commented, and subscribed! I never would have guessed that this little fic would get so much attention in the few weeks of its existence. I'm so glad that you are enjoying it so far! Please feel free to drop me a line about how you like it, or any suggestions you might have! 
> 
> Please bear with me through my sporadic updates. I'm a grad student, and my schedule is a little bonkers, so some chapters may come up faster than others. It just depends on which professor is being evil this week.

Zafra Ren hated people, just like you. That’s why she joined the Knights of Ren when she had the opportunity. The only time she had to deal with a person was when she had to kill them, and unlike you, she had a license to do that. Should you ever meet Zafra Ren, you would be very jealous of her.

Unfortunately for Zafra she was now marooned on _Finalizer_ because one of her fellow ~~coneheads~~ knights had knocked her over while sparring, causing her to sprain her ankle. Quite badly. Kylo Ren was not happy about it, especially when said injury meant that she wouldn’t be able to accompany him on his Very Important Diplomatic Mission. Zafra supposed she didn’t mind. At least she wouldn’t have to listen to a bunch of old planetary heads of state drone on and on about boring shit, and she certainly wouldn’t have to listen to Savarin Ren, Kylo’s second, snore all the time.

What Zafra had failed to take into consideration was how fucking BORED she was. The doctors had only cleared her today, and of course, it was too late for her to join Kylo and the other knights on said mission. Bored and grumpy, Zafra made her way over the knights’ training room, hoping that blasting a few droids might cheer her up. It wasn’t as satisfying as blowing up actual people, but even though she was Kylo Ren’s favorite (despite Arvind Ren’s vehement, kiss-ass denial of that very obvious fact), she doubted that he would be very happy if she destroyed a few storm troopers.

“It’d be a waste of resources,” Kylo had said nonchalantly to her one day when she pitched the idea of live target practice. General Hux had been mildly horrified at her idea, but she really didn’t care. Zafra hated Hux (another fact that may put her on track to being your very first best friend). He was a whiny, pretty-boy playing dress-up in his dad’s uniform. The first time Kylo had heard this exact thought, he snickered. His vocoder made it sound like some very concerning, raspy breathing, but Zafra knew a laugh when she heard one. She was pretty certain that her ability to make the Supreme Leader laugh is what quickly propelled her from being Rookie Ren to Kylo’s favorite (sorry Arvind, get over it).

Zafra had been practicing against a few of the training droids that Kylo had (somehow) overlooked when she felt this very odd sensation of being watched through the Force. She paused in her attack for a few seconds, causing one of the droids to shoot her in the foot. (“You sneaky bastard,” she mumbled, and then proceeded to club the thing to death with her staff.) She tried to ignore the feeling for the next few minutes, but it just wouldn’t go away. There was something wrong. Someone was spying on her.

“Trust your instincts,” Kylo had said to her when she had first began her training, “They will keep you alive. Ignore them, and you _will_ suffer the consequences.”

So she took Kylo’s advice, paused the training program, and began searching the room for anyone who might be hiding. It wasn’t a very large room, and given the open floor plan and the wall completely covered in mirrors, it would not be very easy to hide. Yet despite having checked the room, she found nothing. Zafra settled down in the middle of the room, closed her eyes, and tried to reach out into the Force in the hopes it might lead her to whoever was watching her.

“Zafra,” she heard Savarin’s voice call to her in her head. They must be done with the negotiations for the day. “The Supreme Leader asked me to check on you. I sense you are agitated.”

“Someone is watching me,” she said, “I can’t find them.”

“Are you in danger?” Savarin’s tone grew increasingly more concerned, “Where are you?”

“In the training room. There is no one in the room with me,” she responded.

“What are you sensing?”

“Someone is definitely here,” she said, “But they are not paying attention to me. In fact...I don’t know if they realize I am here.”

“Zafra,” Savarin sounded very severe, “If someone has access to the knights’ personal training room, then this is incredibly serious. You don’t know what they could do. You need to find them.”

“I am trying. You are distracting me,” Zafra snarked. She could feel Savarin rolling his eyes, but he eventually left her alone. Zafra began to control her breathing, trying to enter a meditative state. It took her a few minutes, but she was finally able to navigate through the Force. She relaxed, letting the Force guide her to a place that she did not expect.

Zafra opened her eyes and turned around to the far right corner of the room. She looked up to see the small security camera protruding from the corner of the ceiling.

“The camera?” she mumbled confusedly as she approached the corner. She looked up into the lens, studying it. Why would the Force lead her here? The feeling was certainly stronger in this corner of the room. It was almost as though the person was standing right in front of her. It took a few seconds, but then Zafra widened her eyes.

“The camera!” she exclaimed, “Someone is watching me through the camera!”

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You barely had time to change into your uniform before making your way to Hux’s office. You were doing some awkward half run-walk thing that caused a few storm troopers to give you questioning looks. You didn’t care about them—you didn’t have the time to care about them. It was highly likely that you were about to be incinerated. Somehow, in your infinite stupidity (which you were having a hard time admitting to), you managed to get your bitch-ass caught. You weren’t sure _how_ exactly because despite your close call, you were fairly sure that you had managed to mask your electronic signature fairly well.

Well...clearly not, because Hux had summoned you to his office. And he was all kinds of Not Happy. The thunderous look on his face when you entered his office certainly confirmed your suspicions. You were about to be deleted. Oh well, you supposed your run was nice while it lasted. You wished that you had some more time to annoy Hux with Martin McFly or at least had the opportunity to see what Kylo Ren looked like underneath his mask (you clearly hadn’t seen the training room footage yet, because if you had, you knew you wouldn’t mind his face being the last thing you saw).

Also in Hux’s office was a woman you had never seen before. It took you a moment to notice her, which was understandable. She was standing in a corner, her dark skin, hair, and black outfit blending masterfully into the shadows. She had what looked like a large staff strapped to her back and...was that _another_ laser-pointer-of-doom thing strapped to her hip (????).

Oh. She was probably a Knight of Ren. Sent here to finish you off. Goddammit, you were hoping you would _at least_ have the opportunity to pet Hux’s cat, Millicent and give Rod Serling to a good owner before you passed on. Whelp. On the bright side, it seemed you were important enough to have an esteemed knight do you in. Wow, what an impact you’ve made on the First Order.

From her dark corner, you could see the knight (was there a female denominative of knight? Dame? That just called up images of old ladies who wore dresses—you were sure this woman would not appreciate being compared to them) turn up her lips in a smirk. Fuck, that’s right. These guys could read your thoughts. Because Force shit and all that. Ah well, you supposed at least one person derived entertainment from your clusterfuck of a brain.

“Lieutenant,” Hux seethed, “Do you care to explain what in the actual FUCK you were thinking, hacking the security cameras of the private trainings rooms of the Supreme Leader and his knights?”

Teehee, the prude could swear. What a momentous occasion. Now maybe if you could just get him laid, he would calm his tits and leave you alone.

Over in the corner, the knight looked like she was having a really hard time keeping it together. Clearly, you were quite the comedian.

“I’m not sure what you are talking about, General,” you said. Maybe if you played stupid, Hux would get annoyed and leave you alone. Alas, said hope was a stretch.

“I don’t have time for your games, Lieutenant,” Hux spit (gross, watch your projectile saliva, please. The knight put a hand over her mouth to stifle a laugh). “Lady Ren discovered that someone was spying on her through the security cameras in her training rooms. And given your incredibly unusual interest in obtaining the camera footage from those rooms, my suspicion lands squarely on you.”

So...wait a second. Does this mean that you weren’t found out because of a shit hacking job? A Force user had somehow realized what you were up to? Oh come on that is just _not_ fair. At least you were as good of a hacker as you originally thought. At least you could die knowing that your years of training hadn’t been for naught.

Lady Ren (the knight has a title at least now) raised her eyebrows at you. She knew that you were lying to Hux, but didn’t seem very inclined to tell him. You wondered how much more entertainment you could extract out of this bullshit situation before she lopped your head off.

“Is that so? Perhaps I could check the camera logs myself and see if I could find the culprit. I have never seen Lady Ren before, so the accusation of me spying on her does not make sense,” you replied, sardonically.

If looks could kill, your headstone would read, “Here lies the ashes of the unfortunate earthling who pissed off General Hux.” What a boring way to die. At least if Lady Ren took you out, it would be at the hands of a badass, female warrior rather than a sniveling, manchild with daddy issues.

Lady Ren definitely could not contain her laughter this time, and began snickering, causing General Hux to turn his ire towards her. Bad idea, you thought, she’d liquify him with that laser pointer.

“Is there something funny, Lady Ren?” he hissed. Lady Ren did not dignify that with an answer and merely raised her eyebrow. The general huffed and turned back to you.

“I checked the logs myself, Lieutenant,” he continued, “I don’t care if you wanted to spy on Lady Ren or not. What I do care about is that some of the camera footage had been downloaded. NOW do you care to explain this?”

Oh okay it looks like you were wrong. You _were_ a shit hacker. You forgot to somehow mask the evidence of downloading the data. In your defense, you finished downloading with only about fifteen seconds left before someone traced the signature back to your computer. You clearly didn’t plan this out very well. And unfortunately, you didn’t have a snarky retort for the general. Your last line of defense had failed you. Goodbye everyone, you thought, I’ll remember you all in therapy.

“General, if I may?” Lady Ren finally spoke up, revealing an interesting accent. General Hux rolled his eyes nodded.

“I’m not going to kill you,” she said. Well that was a damn shame, because if she didn’t, Hux would and that would just suck. Lady Ren smirked at hearing that. “I just want to know _why_ you did this.”

Well there was no point in trying to lie anymore. You sighed and explained how you needed the footage to analyze Kylo’s fighting style and create his custom training droids. Instead of looking murderous, Lady Ren actually looked impressed.

“That’s quite a clever approach,” she said, “Unfortunately, I cannot allow you to have that footage as the Supreme Leader would have _all three_ of our heads if he realized that it had gotten out. He isn’t wearing his mask in some of the videos.”

Oh.

Well then.

That...you didn’t think about that. Huh.

“I won’t report you to the Supreme Leader,” she said. Hux looked like he was about to have an aneurysm. “But I need you to delete that footage.”

Now how were you supposed to complete your job. Jesus Christ.

“Don’t worry,” Lady Ren said, “I’ll help you.”

Well...

You were not expecting that. 

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“With due respect, Lady Ren—,” you said as the two of you exited the fuming general’s office.

“Please,” she said, rolling her eyes, “Call me Zafra. ‘Lady Ren’ is meant to be used by my inferiors.”

How sweet. She didn’t view you on the same level as General Weaselface.

“Zafra, then,” you continued, “Why are you offering to help me? I _did_ just hack the security cameras of the Knights of Ren. Poorly too, I might add.”

Zafra beamed, “I like you. I find you amusing. It takes guts to do what you did, poorly or not. There aren’t that many women on this ship anyway, it would be nice to get to know the few there are.”

Certainly true. You should introduce her to Max. The two of them would hit it off like a house on fire.

“And besides,” she said, stopping at the end of the hallway where the corridor split either left or right, “Anyone who dislikes General Hux is automatically a friend of mine.”

You smiled. A fellow Hux hater! The Force has been good to you. “I look forward to working with you, Zafra. If you’re free tomorrow, please stop by my office. I’ll delete the footage in front of you so you can be assured, and then we can start working on these droids.”

Zafra smiled and nodded before swiftly taking a right, her black cape billowing out behind her. What a badass.

It wasn’t until you got back to your quarters and were about to drift off to sleep when it hit you.

You had just made a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I thought you needed a friend. I certainly need a friend. I hope you like her!
> 
> I promise you'll meet Kylo soon. Promise! I did say slow burn though :)


	4. Chapter 4

To say that Kylo Ren was annoyed would be one of the biggest understatements in the galaxy. Savarin Ren was a little concerned he was going to have to somehow manhandle his master out of the meeting room with Nakva IV’s rather stupid diplomats. While he may not be the focal point of Kylo’s anger, he certainly did not want it directed at him for any amount of time. If Zafra were here, she’d have some snarky comment that would, undoubtedly, diffuse the tense situation, which was probably one of the reasons Kylo liked her so much. But alas, Zafra was not here to calm down their spitfire boss.

However, Savarin Ren wasn’t so sure that she would have been of any use if she were here. The situation was _that_ bad.

Kylo Ren _really, really_ needed a girlfriend. Or at least someone he could lay on a regular enough basis that it could accomplish the task of getting his massive head out of his ass. Savarin looked at Kylo, hoping beyond hope that he had not heard that. Thankfully, Kylo was too wrapped up in his own anger to pay attention to Savarin and pick at his well-formed mental walls.

Nakva IV’s minister of defense (or was it finance? Force, they were all starting to blend together in Savarin’s head at this point) proceeded to whine for the next ten minutes about why the First Order’s proposal wasn’t going to work, when Kylo had finally had enough. He stood up from the table, interrupting the babbling minister, and demanded a recess from the negotiations before storming out of the room without another word. Of course, it was up to Savarin and the poor diplomat they had brought along to apologize to the Nakva IV delegation for Ren’s behavior.

Eventually Savarin caught up with his boss. Before he could say anything, Kylo spoke.

“You said you would check on Zafra. How is she?” he asked, his voice modulator making him sound bored when Savarin knew that he was genuinely concerned about the wellbeing of one of his favorite knights. 

“Fine,” Savarin replied, “At least physically. Last time she spoke to me, she said that she felt there was an unauthorized individual in our personal training rooms.”

Kylo turned to him. Savarin was all but sure that he was glaring underneath his helmet.

“Did she get it sorted?” he hissed.

“I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to her since. I could sit out the next session and ask her?” Savarin offered.

Kylo shook his head. “No. Zafra can take care of herself. I have a more important job for you. Figure out how to shut up that Nakvian. If I have to listen to his voice one more time, I will incinerate this entire kriffing planet.”

Great. He was in _that_ kind of mood. Poor Nakva IV. They were about to go the way of Alderaan and their delegation was too stupid to realize it.

“And one more thing,” Kylo continued, “Inform the general that I want those training droids ready right when I return. I plan to make use of them immediately.” And then he stalked off down the hallway to do Force knows what, leaving behind a very confused and exasperated Savarin.

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You were really starting to wonder where Zafra Ren had been all your life. You had only been acquainted for about two days, and already you both were Trouble Incarnate. Zafra kept to her promise and showed up at your office the day after your encounter with Hux and prepared to help you with the training droids (only after she watched you delete the footage of Kylo Ren...a shame, really, it would have been fun to snoop on the Supreme Leader). Zafra had definitely heard that and rolled her eyes.

Whatever Zafra had done before she joined the Knights of Ren had given her stellar engineering skills. She wasn’t nearly as good as you (nobody was, and you would refuse to concede that point. And if the time came where, Force forbid, someone _did_ one-up you, they could pry your degree from your cold, dead hands). Where she came in the most handy was when she demonstrated how to use that red photon sword (“Light saber, Lieutenant,” she had grumbled, “it’s called a light saber.” You nodded, “Yes, it’s a photon sword, where am I wrong in this description?”). It proved immensely helpful, and you were able to complete these droids within record time, and were ready to install them in Ren’s training room.

With not much time to spare too. Ren was due back, well frankly, any minute now.

So that’s how General Hux found you and Zafra pushing a rather large cart full of droids down the hallway.

“Finally,” he quipped, “Took you long enough. Hurry up and install them before Ren gets back.”

You looked up at Hux, who looked genuinely relieved that he no longer needed to deal with this droid headache. Nah, you weren’t going to let him off the hook that easily.

“With due respect, sir, I would like a chocolate chip muffin.”

Maybe you had spontaneously combusted and turned into a Wookie because Hux looked at you as though you were not human. Which, to be fair, you’d rather be a cyborg, so not being human would be a step in the right direction. Fewer annoyances you’d have to deal with—like your occasional craving for chocolate chip muffins. Or just food in general.

“Excuse me, Lieutenant? You want a what??”

“A chocolate chip muffin, sir,” you said with a completely blank face, “In exchange for my services.”

If there was one thing you had learned about Zafra recently it’s that, despite being a celibate, Darth Sithness Jr., she had a dirty mind. So she started snickering. Loudly.

Hux was even more pissed. Really, if the man weren’t so entertaining when he was annoyed, you wouldn’t annoy him as much.

“And _why_ would I do that?”

Why he was actually continuing this ludicrous line of conversation as opposed to just _walking away_ was really quite a mystery. But Hux wasn’t exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer when it came to social skills. Then again, neither were you. You just cared a helluva lot less.

“I had heard you mention to Captain Phasma, sir, that you would do anything to have these training droids completed. Even giving up your immortal soul.”

Hux rolled his eyes.

“I have no need of your immortal soul, sir. But I do have need of a chocolate chip muffin. Again, in exchange for my services.”

If looks could kill, you would be splattered all over the base in large, gory chunks. You sometimes wondered if Hux ever wished he was force sensitive so he could do things like rip people apart without using a weapon. You wondered what it would be like to be ripped apart. Probably unpleasant.

That being said, Hux did look like a tomato. And Zafra’s laughter certainly wasn’t helping him at all. Poor Huxy boy. He really needed help in schooling his facial features. You really did wonder how he had made it this far. How Snoke hadn’t blasted him to smithereens for his inability to control his emotions.

“If those droids work, _Lieutenant_ , I will see what I can do about your...kriffing muffin.” And with that, General Prettyboy tantrumed off in the opposite direction, leaving you monstrously smug and Zafra fairing not much better.

“You are going to get fired one day,” Zafra said, “and then I won’t have anyone to harass him with. So please do be careful.”

“Hux won’t fire me,” you said with abject confidence, “I happen to be the person that solves most of his problems for him because he is clearly incapable of doing that himself.” You placed your hands back on the heavy cart. “Now, let’s get these droids installed before Ren, who I am sure will actually fire me, gets back.”

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It had taken way too much persuading, but Nakva IV had finally become a part of the First Order. Kylo wondered if things would have gone faster if he had just killed the entire delegation, but Savarin had pointed out that if he did that, it might lead to the stupid Nakvians joining the Resistance. And there was no way he could allow that to happen. Nakva had too many precious minerals that the First Order needed—badly. Volatile ones that would have exploded and destroyed the entire planet had the First Order decided to stage a raid and accidentally blasted the mines.

Kylo still thought that it was a risk they should have taken.

Snoke may have been the bane of Kylo’s existence once-upon-a-time, and he definitely wasn’t upset that he was dead. But if he had realized exactly how much people-placating being the Supreme Leader entailed, he wasn’t sure if he would have actually gone down this route.

But no matter, that’s what destroying droids was for. And so Kylo walked into his private training rooms fully intent on doing so. He was only mildly surprised when he saw an entire array of droids ready for him. At least _someone_ in this stupid organization knew how to do their damn job. Eager, Kylo ignited his saber and started the training program. Hopefully these stupid things would last longer than ten minutes like they normally did.

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You were minding your merry business in your quarters, having decided to leave work after installing the training droids with Zafra. She had had some very-important-Knight-of-Ren-shit she needed to take care of upon the arrival of her master. So without your fellow dark witch to entertain you, you decided that returning to your quarters and reading Agatha Christie with a milkshake was in order.

If there was one thing you missed the most about Earth, it was the food. The food on the First Order was fine enough. Sure it tasted ok, but it took a lot of getting used to. You had learned not to ask what was in it. Whenever they did have some mockup of an Earth dish, you would be sure to order it. Like milkshakes. You saw that they were available on the dessert menu today, so you had decided to skip the cafeteria, spend some of your well-earned credits on room service, and treat yo-self (okay, you didn’t just miss the food, you also missed Parks and Rec—these space people were so boring).

Unfortunately for you, your chocolate milkshake and _And Then There Were None_ time was interrupted by a knock on your door. Groaning, you took one last, long sip of your delicious shake and answered it, finding a nervous-looking stormtrooper (could they really look nervous under all that armor?) on the other side.

“The Supreme Leader requests your presence in the throne room. I am to escort you,” the trooper said.

...

.....

.......

Motherfucker

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You had never been to the throne room before, but that was typically considered a Good Thing. Being in the throne room meant that you had done a Bad Thing and were subsequently about to be given a one-way ticket to the Bad Place. You were fairly sure that you were about to be on that train. And unfortunately Adam Scott wasn’t going to be the demon that would escort you down there. What a shame.

When you entered the throne room, you were quite overwhelmed by the sheer vastness of the room. And the surprising _lack_ of stormtroopers (or even Knights of Ren) around. Well, if it were you and Kylo Ren in a fight, you were going to lose. Hands down. So you supposed he didn’t really need any backup.

But damn, that black and red garbage can on his head was certainly _unnerving as fuck_. Obviously that was the _point_. It certainly did its job. At least you knew stormtroopers were kind of stupid underneath those monotonous helmets. You had absolutely _no idea_ what was going on in the Supreme Leader’s head. Heh. This was going to be interesting.

“Lieutenant,” the Supreme Leader boomed, his voice mechanized by his vocoder. It intimidated the crap out of you, and you really don’t scare all that easily.

“General Hux informs me that you were the one responsible for developing my new training droids.”

Oh damn, did he not like them? Oof you’d just earned yourself a spot on the Highway to Hell. You had really, really tried not to get flambéed by that red photon sword of his, but it appears you had failed. Monstrously. Should you lie? Eh, best not.

“Yes sir, that was me.”

Ren was silent for what was probably about ten seconds, but it felt like years. You were fairly certain he was calculating the best way to off you while managing to capture your pathetic soul and imprison it in his torture chamber.

“Hmmm...” Ren finally said. He made no move to say anything else. Anything that would have given away what Demons of Darkness he had summoned for you.

Ren returned to being silent once again, and it was really doing _wonders_ for your anxiety **insert sarcasm here**. You stood there for another ~~eternity~~ 10 seconds with ‘ _fuckity fuck fuck on a stick_ ’ playing over and over in your head before Ren spoke again.

“Your mind,” he said, “It’s incredibly...chaotic. How do you stand it?”

Oh. Oh right. Uh yeah. Force-Jedi-Sith-mind-shit. Yeah. He could hear everything you were thinking. Oops. You’d...conveniently forgotten about that. Um, well....Hi Supreme Leader! No, you moron, what the fuck are you doing? Better start running through the list of all of Earth’s deities. Maybe one of them would be bored enough to save you from your plight. More likely, they had all gathered in their resplendent chariots and were staring down at you from heaven, highly amused.

It was at this point that you’d realized that you hadn’t answered his question.

“Um, with great difficulty...sir,” you said. Because yeah, what the fuck else were you going to say? You were kind of...stuck with yourself. What a depressing thought.

Ren clasped his hands together and leaned forward, studying you. You were about to start reciting the Lord’s Prayer in Hindi when Ren beckoned you with his hand.

“Come closer,” he said, “I cannot see your face well from this distance.”

Oh _hell no_. You _loved_ this distance. You were _ecstatic_ about it. In fact, it was your _most favorite distance in the entire universe._ You had no desire to change the magnitude of your distance vector. Nope, nope, you were staying RIGHT HERE thank you very much.

Ren didn’t like your noncompliance. “I said, come closer!” he hissed. And before you could even try to make up some excuse as to why you loved your little spot _near the door_ , you were suddenly being lifted up in the air.

Motherfucker, he was Forcing you to come closer to him. You needed to pray harder clearly. _In the name of Allah, the most merciful, the most compassionate, Jai Shree Ram, Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name..._ —None of those guys were coming to help you. Earth’s religions had lied to you. You were going to die at the hands of your boss, and it was not going to be pleasant. You were going have to spend purgatory with your mother, which is something you were _really, really_ hoping to avoid.

Ren eventually set you down with more force than necessary (har har har, pun intended) and stared at you.

“Why are you so fixated on me killing you? Do you want me to?” he asked.

Well—if he was offering.

You were starting to perform a cost-benefit analysis on the risks of meeting your mother after death versus the potential to obtain answers about Life’s Most Burning Questions, when Ren had clearly had enough of your internal monologue.

“Lieutenant!” he sneered. You snapped back to attention, remembering exactly why you were here in the first place.

“Preferably not, sir,” you answered, “Of course, if you didn’t like the droids I built, then there really isn’t much point to voicing my desires, is there?”

Oh shit.

You had just backtalked the Supreme Leader.

Whatever mercy he may have been willing to grant was certainly gone now. You braced yourself, waiting for the inevitable.

....Which never came.

Instead the Supreme Leader continued staring at you, and if you didn’t know any better, you’d say he was—amused?

“You have a lot of nerve, don’t you, Lieutenant?” he said.

That was certainly a polite way of putting it. You had no nerve, in reality. You just didn’t have a filter.

“Your droids,” he continued, leaning back in his throne, “It took me quite some time to beat the five I was using. Thirty point two minutes, to be exact.”

Oh. Was that a good thing?

“No training droid has been able to last that long against me. In fact, very few _people_ are able to last that long against me.”

Oh. Yay! You hit the brief then! Right? So...why were you here?

“How did you do it?” the Supreme Leader asked.

Aw fuck. Apparently it wasn’t enough that the droids could last longer than five seconds against the Death Queen, he had to know exactly _how_ they were able to do that so his ego wouldn’t be bruised. Fuck, shut up brain. He _can hear you_ , remember??

“Lieutenant!”

“Um...”

“Yes, Lieutenant? It’s a simple enough question. What exactly were you able to do that none of the droid programmers in this entire order were able to?”

Yes, well. This was the part that you were hoping he wouldn’t ever find out. Um ok. How you were going to weasel your way out of this one was going to be a unique challenge to your people skills. Joy.

“I, uh, had some help...sir.”

Ren gave you the Unnerving Stare™ again.

“Help. From whom?”

Cue anxiety.

“From Lady Ren.”

The Supreme Leader sighed. You wondered how much longer you were going to last before he decided to slice you in half and put you in this week’s mystery meat stew.

“ _Which_ Lady Ren are you referring to?”

Oh...there were two female knights? Hey cool! Who was the other one? Would she be your friend too?

“Zafra or Rohini? Which one _was it_?”

You really didn’t want to throw your only friend under the bus, but Ren can read minds. He’d figure it out eventually. Sorry Zafra.

“Zafra, then,” Ren stated before you could open your stupid mouth, “and how exactly were you able to have a conversation with her, let alone convince her to help you do your job?”

Eyyyy, yeah so this was the part you were _really, really, really_ hoping to keep under wraps. What with the whole botched hacking job and all---oh. Oh shit.

Oh no.

Ren was not pleased.

“You did _what exactly_?” He hissed.

God Almighty, you always knew the voices in your head would get you into trouble one day. You just never expected it to be like this.

“If...if it makes you feel better, sir, I didn’t watch any of the footage from the cameras. Zafra made me delete it. She watched me do it too.”

If you thought Hux’s looks kill you on the spot, then you really had no idea what fresh hell awaited you given the look on Ren’s garbage can (and you couldn’t even see his face properly!). Oh this was bad.

Ren stared at you for another few seconds, before he stood up from his throne. Dear Force he was tall. Oh boy, here it comes.

“I don’t have time to deal with an errant Lieutenant. There are far more pressing matters that require my attention.”

Well duh. Why did he bring you here in the first place? Ren glared down at you.

“Lieutenant, you are relieved of duty until I figure out what to do with you. You will return to your quarters and remain there, under armed guard, unless I give my express permission for you to leave. If I find you disobeying me, I will have you executed.”

Oh dear.

Out of nowhere, two stormtroopers magically appeared behind you, grabbed your arms, and began dragging you out of the room while Ren stormed off to an exit behind the throne.

Well, this certainly could have gone a lot better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all of your for all of your kind words of encouragement! I am so glad that all of you are enjoying this little clusterfuck of a story. I'm having a great time writing, and I am hoping you are having as much fun reading it. I don't have this planned out to the nth degree, so if you have suggestions as to what you would like to see, and where you would like the story to go, let me know! I'll credit you with any suggestion that I use!
> 
> I'm sorry for the lack of a regular updating schedule. Unfortunately, my schedule is a bit erratic, since I am currently in grad school. I will try to make sure that I update once every two weeks, but I can't guarantee anything. Rest assured I won't abandon this little piece, but please be patient with me! Once my classes finish up, I'll have a less pressing schedule. 
> 
> As always, feel free to leave a comment or drop me a line and let me know what you think!


	5. Chapter 5

House arrest, you decided, wasn’t all that bad. In fact, it was just a paid vacation, if you thought about it. Considering how much pressure General Hux (and by proxy, the Supreme Leader) had put on you the past couple of days, you really deserved a break. In fact, you were going to fucking enjoy it. Screw your piss poor mental strength capabilities.

You lazed around pretty much all day, reading, watching holo programs, sleeping, looking out of your viewport at the stars. Some stormtrooper brought you food from the cafeteria, and if you didn’t want it, you could just order in from the First Order’s extensive service menu available to officers (which involved spending credits, but eh, you never spent them anyway. You had more than you really knew what to do with). In fact, you really never needed to change out of your pajamas. And you didn’t.

However, by day five, you were starting to go a little stir crazy. Sure, taking naps and watching movies all day was appealing for a little while, but your mind was too busy being a pain in the ass to let you enjoy it for long. And then there was the small fact that your hands were itching to touch a soldering iron again. You thought about bugging General Hux again and asking when the Supreme Leader would let you out of here, but the last time you had done that, he threatened to throw you into a trash compactor. And while, under normal circumstances, you highly doubted Hux would get away with it, considering the deep shit you were in with Kylo Ren, you figured you’d better not risk it.

By day six, you were ready to claw your eyes out. Ren had better let you out of here soon or you’d be tempted to hack his security cameras again, just to screw with him.

Hmmm...now there was an idea.

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Entering his quarters, Kylo Ren immediately removed his helmet and plopped it onto the stand next to the door, before making his way over to his very comfortable bed and crashing onto it, face first. He was mentally and physically exhausted and the last thing he needed, other than an annoying, errant lieutenant who took liberties with her job (that’s you, friend), was a Knight of Ren who had grown _attached_ to said lieutenant.

Kylo was, ironically, in the middle of photoning the crap out of the droids that you had built when Zafra Ren had decided to make an appearance and use her influence to make her Great Request. Kylo knew exactly what she was going to ask him before he felt her coming towards the training rooms. It was really only a matter of time.

“Yes, Zafra?” he asked while lopping the head off of a particularly pesky droid (you may currently be one of the many thorns in his side, but at least you knew how to program decent droids). He hadn’t taken his mask off for this session, and he really was beginning to wish he had. It was getting hot in this damn room.

“Master,” Zafra greeted, respectfully, “I hadn’t had a chance to congratulate you on the success of your mission to Nakva IV. It is a great achievement adding such a...useful planet to the First Order.”

Kylo rolled his eyes, now thankful that his mask was still on. The mission to Nakva IV had been almost a week cycle ago. He had known Zafra for a long enough period of time to know when she wanted something. If she really wanted to practice her legendary skills of flattery, she needed to find someone else. Kylo was not going to budge.

“What is it that you need, Zafra?”

Zafra shuffled and looked, dare he say it, nervous. Zafra wasn’t easily unnerved. It’s part of why Kylo had recruited her as one of his knights. She normally had an incredibly schooled expression, even if he happened to be pissed off with her.

“Sir, it’s about the lieutenant...the one who programmed your droids.”

Kylo sighed heavily and deactivated the training program. He hadn’t really thought of you at all during the past several days. In fact, this was the first time he was reminded of the fact that you even existed, and that he actually needed to do something about you (such as get you to replace the droids you made—at this rate, he would run out soon). He had way more important and pressing matters to deal with, but he knew that he’d need to deal with you eventually. He gestured for Zafra to continue.

“She will need to go back to work eventually, sir. Her department is in a slight panic without her there at the helm.”

“Is nobody on this ship capable of taking her place? If that is the case, how are we hiring such incompetent people?”

Zafra blinked.

“I think it’s less that the others are incapable, Master, and more that the lieutenant is just...the best at her job.”

Kylo sighed again before turning to face Zafra squarely.

“And why would someone in your position, a Knight of Ren, bother to concern yourself with something as trivial as the interworking of the droid division?” he asked.

“Well, to be honest sir, I don’t care about the lieutenant’s subordinates. It’s just that...well...she’s becoming my friend...sir.”

Oh Maker, Zafra made a _friend_. She was the last person he would have expected to have one of _those._ Kylo looked up at the ceiling, exasperated. It’s not that he forbid his knights from forming attachments. No, no, quite the opposite in fact. The Jedi may have eschewed attachments (and the Sith to a lesser extent), but Kylo imposed no such restriction on his knights purely because he just didn’t _care_ about what they got up to in their spare time so long as it did not affect their work and loyalty to him. Most of them had chosen to remain without attachments (except for Savarin Ren, who, much to Kylo’s annoyance, took the occasional mistress). Kylo never really anticipated having to deal with this. Not only did _he_ have the emotional capabilities of a child (not that he would _ever_ think something like this about himself), but he had to use his limited EQ to essentially...parent a bunch of lethal, emotionally-stunted teenagers in adult bodies.

Kylo sighed and took his helmet off. He was going to need some air after this.

“Zafra, your _friend_ broke several regulations and _hacked_ my personal security cameras—”

“To finish the droids you ordered her to make!”

“Do _not_ interrupt me, Zafra!” Kylo hissed. Zafra deflated slightly and took a step back, bowing her head in apology. Kylo continued.

“For what she did, I should have had her thrown out the nearest airlock or fired. Or at the absolute least, demoted. But I haven’t. She’s under house arrest. She may be bored, but she is fine _._ ”

Zafra looked at him curiously.

“And why haven’t you, sir? Thrown her out an airlock, I mean?”

Kylo did not want to be having this conversation. He just wanted to go back to his quarters. The real answer was that he, honestly and truly, had forgotten about your existence—which is why he left you in your quarters for so long. The even realer answer was that, although he wanted nothing more than to strike your head off for your damn _cheek_ , he knew that it wasn’t going to be that simple. Your skill as a programmer had saved you so far, and it continued to save you now. And Kylo knew that better things awaited you than programming protocol droids all day.

He hadn’t given Zafra a satisfactory answer, and all but threatened her to leave him alone the rest of the day. Which she did. Zafra may have been his favorite, but she knew that his patience, even for her, had its limits. So she backed away and let him ~~sulk~~ walk back his quarters, where he now currently was, mulling over his options. After a few more minutes, he decided he had had enough of this.

He’d made his decision.

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You were in the middle of lamenting the limited functionality of the console in your quarters and how you couldn’t hack Ren’s security cameras again to get his attention (you supposed he would have found a way to upgrade the firewalls on them so that you wouldn’t be able to get in again, but that was beside the point), when a stormtrooper entered your quarters. You thought he was here to bring you your evening meal, but nope. As luck did have it, your confinement was over and you were now being ordered to join the Prince of Darkness once again in the throne room. And you didn’t even have the Dutch courage of a milkshake this time. Joy.

When you entered the throne room, you spotted the Supreme Leader (really, honestly, what a stupid title) drumming his fingers on the arm rest, clearly agitated. This time, you knew that you likely weren’t going to be deleted. If you weren’t important enough for Ren to kill you the first time he saw you, you certainly weren’t worth a second meeting before your untimely demise. Which meant he wanted something from you. More training droids, likely.

“Very good,” Ren said, and you winced. Right, this mind reading crap was really starting to get on your nerves. It was funny the first time, but now it’s just irritating.

“Not as irritating as hearing your _inane_ chatter being broadcast at an rather high volume from across the room,” Ren droned.

Then stop listening.

“If I were to blare an annoyingly loud sound at you, an alarm for example, would you be able to _stop listening_?”

Point taken.

“Now Lieutenant, if you would kindly shut up, I have an offer for you.”

Ooh. Intriguing.

Underneath his garbage can, Ren definitely rolled his eyes at that. “Lieutenant, it has come to my attention that your skills as a programmer are rather wasted designing new protocol droids. Would you agree?”

You certainly didn’t _disagree_ , but you weren’t about to verbally do so given that you had no clue what fresh hell awaited you as an alternative.

...But it really didn’t matter. Ren knew about your preening of your own skills. You had a decently sized chip on your shoulder, and it wasn’t exactly a secret.

“I am in need of skilled engineer,” Ren continued, ignoring whatever you were thinking, “Someone who will work directly with my knights and me, developing personalized droids, gathering and analyzing sensitive information, and even building weapons—to be used _exclusively_ by us of course.”

Oh no. You could see where this would be going.

“This position would involve you accompanying us on missions and assisting with whatever we should need to accomplish them. You would be placed in danger and would likely be in the line of fire. Your range scores are abysmal, so you will need to improve your blaster skills as we have neither the time nor the capacity for dead weight.”

That’s all well and good, but you haven’t exactly agreed to these...shenanigans.

“If you don’t agree, I will have you executed for insubordination.”

Well that settles that. Where’s the signup sheet?

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General Armitage Hux prided himself on being a reasonable man and a respectable employer. He may not be the most popular individual in the galaxy, but at the very least he had the respect of his colleagues and subordinates.

Well, most of them.

He had multiple headaches, of which you were currently Número Uno.

He had just received word of your transfer from the droid division to...well...the service of the Knights of Ren. So after that ridiculous stunt you pulled, not only were you being rewarded with a more interesting job, you were also being _promoted_. With the exception of the lower level staff, no officer below the rank of captain had the authority (or proper clearance) to work so closely with the knights. You had miraculously jumped several ranks and now bore the highly coveted title of commander. All because of a botched hacking job and Ren being a softie.

This was definitely a story to add to his and Captain Phasma’s weekly stitch-and-bitch sessions.

And speaking of the Captain, she had just walked right into his office, so he may not even need to wait until he had time to pick his knitting back up before whining to her. He turned to greet the captain, who subsequently took one look at his exhausted face and said,

“You need a drink.”

The General couldn’t agree more. And with that, he signed out of his office and accompanied Phasma to the officers’ bar and proceeded to replace his people headaches with Corellian whiskey.

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Day One of being the personal engineer of the Knights of Ren (and a newly appointed _commander_ , jeez that was going to take some getting used to) was rather uneventful. Well, okay that was kind of a lie. It saw you packing up your office in the protocol droid department as your underlings looked on, spooked and confused as to what was going to happen to them now that you were leaving. Sure, the First Order had a replacement for you all lined up (they were nothing if not efficient about that), but this department had managed to avoid staying on the higher-ups’ bad side thanks to your leadership. Whoever they picked to replace you had better not fuck up your hard work.

Max was rather devastated at losing her boss, but she hid it well. And unfortunately you couldn’t take her with you (you’d asked and you were sure that Ren would have killed you for asking such a stupid question if he hadn’t only just hired you). You were going to miss her sarcastic, matter-of-fact style. And you would just miss having her as an assistant. Unfortunately, she did not have the proper security clearance to assist someone with your rank now, and Ren looked wholly unenthused about giving it to her. Taking one last look around your former office, you gave Max a pat on the shoulder with a muted, “Good luck,” before sweeping out of the department with little in the way of goodbye. Prolonged exits were pointless and too sentimental. Sure you appreciated your minions well enough, but you weren’t super emotionally attached to them, and you sure as hell weren’t going to start now.

Ren had rather generously given you the day to pack up your old office and get moved into your new quarters, which was now in the officers’ wing, near the knights. And, much to your infinite dismay, down the hallway from General Hux’s quarters. But you supposed you could put up with it because Hux had a very cute cat who you hadn’t met yet and were now one step closer to befriending. Either way, you weren’t going to complain about the move. Your new quarters were _huge_. You had an _actual sitting area_ , a _real kitchen_ , a refresher, and a bedroom...all in separate rooms! What a novel idea. It was a huge upgrade from your studio quarters, with everything crammed into one small room.

Most of your things had been packed up and sent to your new quarters, and now your only real job was to unpack. That wasn’t hard since you didn’t have much in the way of personal items other than clothing and books. You did have _a lot_ of books—more than you were probably allowed to keep, but nobody had made a comment about it. And as a commander, you were permitted to have _even more_ personal possessions, which meant that you could collect more books. What fun!

As you were unpacking, you heard a knock on your door. Curious, you went to the living room to open it, and on the other side was a beaming Zafra, who looked all too pleased that your rooms were very close to hers.

“Welcome to the fun part of the ship!” she said, strolling into your rooms as though she owned the place. To be fair, you didn’t really mind. Zafra plopped onto the very comfortable couch and spread out, surveying the room.

“What makes this wing particularly fun?” you asked.

“Oh you know,” Zafra said, “I’m here.”

You laughed. “Yes, I suppose we will get up to a lot together, won’t we?”

“Oh yes,” Zafra replied, grinning like a Chesire cat, “Now that you’re here, you can help me figure out how to break into General Hux’s quarters. I’ve been trying to steal his cat but could never figure out how to get past the electronic lock.”

You raised your eyebrows at that. “Can you just use the Force to...well... _force_ the doors open?”

“Sure,” Zafra said, brushing her long hair off her shoulder, “But then the Supreme Leader would figure it out, and I can’t imagine he would cover me if I did.”

You chuckled.

“Well, I would love to help you steal Hux’s cat, but I’ve got blaster training in fifteen minutes, and unfortunately, my employment is contingent on me improving my range scores. So I have to attend.”

Zafra pouted. “That’s too bad. I could teach you how to fire a blaster, believe me, it would be much more efficient.”

“I’m sure you could, but I doubt the Supreme Leader would want one of his glorious knights teaching a lowly officer how to shoot.”

“ _Commander_ ,” Zafra reminded you, “You’re a commander now, and in my humble opinion, you are much more entitled to my time as Hux. In fact, given your status as our personal engineer, our titles are almost functionally equivalent. So lowly nothing. Give yourself some more credit. Not many people come out of a meeting with Kylo Ren and live to tell the tale, let alone get a sweet promotion out of it.”

You supposed that was true.

“Now, run along to your blaster training. I’m going to take a nap on your very lovely couch and spare myself from listening to Arvind Ren snore through the walls.” And with that Zafra turned onto her side and proceeded to do exactly that. You rolled your eyes, grabbed your blaster, and headed towards the training rooms.

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You stood outside the knights’ personal training rooms (ironically, the same rooms whose security cameras you had hacked) waiting for your trainer to show up. You found it odd that your summons were to these rooms, as only the knights and Kylo Ren had access to them. You had figured that your trainer would be some storm trooper but clearly not. It was probably time for you to meet another legendary Knight of Ren, but why they would deign to train you—in blaster fire of all things—was a bit beyond your comprehension.

After a few more minutes, you were contemplating whether you should just head back to your quarters when you saw none other than the Supreme Leader himself strolling towards you.

Oh shit.

Whatever it was, you didn’t do it. Of that you were sure this time. 

“Relax,” the Supreme Leader said to you, punching in the code to open the doors to the training room, “I will be leading your training today.”

Uh what?

The Supreme Leader of the First Order, the Master of the Knights of Ren, the Wielder of the Photon Sword of Hades would be training you, a virtual nobody, in _how to fire a motherfucking blaster_??!

Didn’t he have better things to be doing?

“Yes, I do,” he said, “However, you are a very convenient excuse to get out of the things that I should be doing.”

Heh, so it seems the Supreme Leader wasn’t immune to procrastinating either.

You could almost hear Ren roll his eyes at that one.

Tentatively, you followed him into the training room and watched him set up the program (with your training droids nonetheless...heh heh go figure). You were very unsure of what the protocol was in this situation. You truly were expecting some stupid trooper, or possibly even a bored Knight of Ren. Not the Supreme Leader himself. And it didn’t look as though he was going to be very forthcoming with an explanation.

You kept standing there awkwardly waiting for the Supreme Leader to do something or say something. Or at the very least move away from the targets so you could try to hit them. But nope, he had turned around to face you and was just staring at you. It was incredibly unnerving. It was something you were just going to have to get used to if you were going to work with him. Exposure therapy was the only way to cure this one, you supposed.

“Does it really bother you?” the Supreme Leader asked, “the mask?”

Well, yes. But it was there for a reason, and it’s not like you had any control over that.

“You don’t,” Ren agreed, “And yes, you will need to get used to it. But you are particularly unnerved by it. Why?”

What was this? Twenty Questions, Sith Edition? And this mind reading thing was getting very exhausting.

Before you could work on formulating an answer to his question, the Supreme Leader reached to his helmet and dislodged it with a hiss from the decompression. You gulped. Oh no, you were not expecting this. That was clearly the theme of this week.

Ren took off the helmet, revealing a face you _were definitely not expecting_. Well to be fair, you weren’t sure what you thought he would look like but it wasn’t....that. Dark wavy hair, dark eyes, full lips, and a jagged scar across the left side of his face. And if that wasn’t enough, he was so...so _young_ ~~(and incredibly attractive)~~.

What the fuck is going on today? You did not have the emotional or mental bandwidth to deal with this.

Ren smirked. “Were you expecting me to be disfigured or a shriveling old man?” he asked. Without the modulator, his voice was so soft and, well, human. More approachable. This whole thing was just so strange. The Supreme Leader very rarely let anyone see him without his mask and the fact that he let you, _someone he barely knew_ , see his face (and take up his valuable time) was certifiably insane.

What had your life become? You were starting to miss your boring, dead office in the protocol droid division. And dare you say it, Cecil. At least that had been _normal_.

Ren rolled his eyes. “Please, you were bored out of your mind in the droid division. You would be crawling the walls if I sent you back there. Nothing about working for me is normal so you should get used to it. If you are going to be working this closely with my knights and me, you should at least know what I look like.”

Well fair. But you figured you if you were afforded that privilege, it would be much later in this acquaintanceship.

“I only have an hour before I have somewhere far more important to be. So pick up your blaster and let’s see what you can actually do.”

“Yes sir,” you mumbled, picking up your blaster and aiming it at the first droid.

This whole situation had gone from slightly weird to Mad Hatter in the span of a few short minutes, and you had absolutely no idea what you were going to do about it.

One thing was for certain—you would never be bored again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Thanks for sticking with me through my sporadic updates. I think I am going to try to update once every two weeks. Once classes are over, I will try for once a week. In the meantime, please let me know what you think of this chapter. I figured the story has been a bit slow, so I'm trying to speed things up a bit more! Also, let me know what you think of the length of each chapter, if you would prefer something shorter/longer? And the pace of the story. I appreciate any and all feedback!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed this one!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wrote this instead of studying or doing my homework. Haha. That's why you guys get a chapter a week early!
> 
> Anyway, you all are either going to love me or hate me for this chapter. I was struck with (what I thought) was a brilliant idea, so I hope you all like this direction. :)

As far as a settling in period was concerned, your new job offered you a rather long one. Three whole weeks to be exact. Because contrary to popular belief, the First Order didn’t exactly go around shooting people and incinerating planets every day. In fact, most of your days were filled with locum office work...just like everyone else. According to Kylo Ren, the entire mission of the First Order was to, well, maintain _order_ and peace in the galaxy (he was certainly doing a spectacular job of _that_ ). But either way, what this so-called “peaceful” mission meant for you was that you didn’t exactly see a whole lot of action.

That didn’t mean that you weren’t busy and got to laze around in your brand-new commander’s quarters all day—oh no. It meant that you were personally responsible for dealing with the mess that Snow White and her seven dwarves left behind (you have firmly pegged Savarin Ren as Doc and Arvind Ren as Dopey. As for Zafra, she was Grouchy, which she most certainly _did not_ appreciate). In fact, one day, after learning that the Resistance had managed to capture a small First Order science outpost near Qandahar (the secret planet the First Order was scouting out to be the next location for Starkiller Base 2.0), Kylo Ren had decided that taking out an entire control panel near the ammunitions wing was a _fantastic idea_. And guess whose job it was to clean that one up?

You guessed it, friend.

You were less of an engineer and more of glorified janitor at this point. But at least you had managed to fix the panel before the live wires set something off. That was something of a personal record for you considering you had to do the entire thing _alone_. Nobody in their right mind would go near anything Graced by the Presence of Zeus and his Red Thunderbolt. And since you were never in your right mind, it made you the perfect woman for the job.

That didn’t mean you couldn’t use some help.

And unfortunately for you, you got it.

In the worst form imaginable.

You were in the process of fixing a broken panel that was rather instrumental in maintaining the environmental conditions around one of the _Finalizer’s_ large cannons. Considering the volatility of the compounds in the cannon, if the ambient temperature went even slightly above 313 degrees Kevin (40 Celsius, so somewhere around 100 Fahrenheit, you mentally calculated), it would explode and take out most of the ship with it. So yeah, they actually needed someone more skilled than a mere control panel technician to fix this one. So, they called you.

Ironically Kylo wasn’t the one to screw up this system. That honor had fallen (literally) to Rohini Ren, the other female Knight of Ren whom you had yet to meet. And it was a totally ridiculous accident. Rohini was carrying a hot caf and then proceeded to very unceremoniously and very unbecomingly slip on a giant puddle of cleaning fluid (that maintenance that _somehow_ overlooked), and spill said caf all over the control panel. What exactly Rohini Ren was doing in the cannon hallway _with a cup of very hot, very dangerous liquid_ , was frankly above your (admittedly high) pay grade at this point.

Anyway, you were in the middle of fixing this panel system when you felt a hand on your shoulder. Whipping around ready to scream, you found yourself face-to-face with a slightly perturbed technician.

“Who the _hell_ are you?” you demanded. Nobody else was authorized to be here without your _express_ permission while you fixed this— _mess_.

“Uh, hello, Commander. My name’s Matt. I’m a radar technician,” he said, monotonously.

This _Matt_ looked awfully familiar. Perhaps you’d seen him around the ship before. But you were sure you would remember someone as dorky looking as him, what with his stupid, gigantic glasses and messy blonde hair. But that didn’t matter, what the hell was he doing in your workspace? You had authorized no such...Matt...to come here.

“Matt,” you said, narrowing your eyes, “What are you doing here?”

Matt blinked dumbly at you. “My supervisor sent me here, Commander. General Hux, uh, told my supervisor that you needed an extra pair of hands. So, he sent me here.”

“I don’t remember discussing my need for assistance with General Hux.”

Matt shrugged. “I don’t know, Commander, I just do as I’m told.”

Well, fair enough.

“Do you have an official notice or an assignment posting so that I can verify you are actually supposed to be here?”

Matt said nothing and handed over his datapad. You checked it and well, what do you know. The technician was assigned to this area, under your direction. The approval for the assignment was signed by none other than the Ginger Menace himself.

You were going to have a talk with General Hux about this. Sending someone to _help_ you with no warning. It was just preposterous. But at the moment, you weren’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. If Matt was here, you might as well put him to work.

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_Whomp_.

Zafra groaned, staring at the ceiling. Kylo had knocked her on her ass for the third time, and they’d only been training for half an hour. Seriously, what had she done to deserve this? Normally she was able to last for a long time against Kylo, but she was not doing well today.

Kylo frowned. “Get up, Zafra,” he ordered softly, and reluctantly she did. Kylo hadn’t needed to personally train Zafra for some time now, but after her ankle injury and subsequent distraction over the past few weeks, he had decided that a few one-to-one sessions weren’t unreasonable. Generally, she performed incredibly well, holding her own against him. But this time, it had been all too easy to fling her to the ground.

Which meant that Zafra was very distracted.

And that was not good. Whatever it was, it needed to be nipped in the bud right now.

Kylo waved his hand dismissively as Zafra readied her staff for another round. Confused, she lowered her weapon and looked at her master, wondering what he had in store for her next. Kylo tossed his own weapon aside and sat down on the floor, cross-legged. He indicated for Zafra to do the same, and she complied.

“You have been distracted lately. Your form is not up to your usual standards,” Kylo said, “I wish to know what is troubling you.”

Zafra took a deep breath and hung her head. “I don’t know, Master. I feel—lost, confused, unfocused. I feel out of sync with the Force. With the Dark Side.”

Kylo frowned. “Do you feel the pull towards the Light?”

Zafra shook her head, vehemently. “No, sir, not at all. It’s more that I feel—disconnected. As though I don’t know where I belong.”

Kylo sighed. He knew exactly what Zafra was referring too. He too had had these feelings, particularly after the death of his father. Snoke had convinced him that killing Han Solo would complete his transition to the Dark Side. In a way, it had done that. But it left Kylo feeling lost—wondering if he was doing the right thing. He was constantly second guessing himself. And the scavenger girl-turned-Jedi, who was still running around, certainly didn’t help matters. He couldn’t have Zafra falling into the same trap. Second guessing her decisions and allegiances would only cause more bloodshed.

For Kylo, killing Snoke had marked a turning point. It was a relief, really. He had developed confidence in himself and who he was, no longer living in the shadows of his master. He had learned to use the Dark Side to benefit him—not merely to please his former master, or even his long-dead grandfather. He was much stronger, much surer in his allegiances. He needed Zafra and all of his knights to reach that point.

Unfortunately for Kylo, while he had grown much stronger, much more assured, he still lacked _balance_.

Not that he would ever admit it, but he lacked something or _someone_ to help him achieve that balance. And it looked as though Zafra was in very much the same boat. She needed something to tether her. To ground her. To balance her.

“Just like you do,” a nasty voice that sounded eerily similar to Luke Skywalker said in his head. Kylo ignored it and turned back to his favorite knight.

“Zafra, you need a tether,” Kylo started, “Something to balance you and keep you grounded. Something to help you ensure that your allegiances are strong.”

Zafra looked thoughtful.

“How do I find this...thing that is supposed to keep me balanced, Master?”

“I cannot help you find it. It is something you must discover on your own, and you must open yourself up to it. The only advice I can give you is that you need to meditate. That will help you know where to start.”

Zafra nodded, looking less than thrilled about the possibility of meditating all day. Despite her many redeeming qualities, that was one thing she still sucked at. She’d have to get some advice from Rohini, who was the best at this.

“Master, may I ask you a rather personal question?” Zafra asked, quietly. Kylo nodded for her to continue.

“Do you have a tether, sir?”

Kylo paused, not sure how to answer that. The accurate answer was _no_ but he had developed many strategies for dealing with this over the years. His silence, however, was giving Zafra an answer, and he refused to show any form of weakness in front of his knights—even Zafra who was his favorite.

“It may take years for you to find one, Zafra. But you will develop ways to balance yourself in the meantime. Don’t rush the search but be active about it.”

The half answer seemed to satisfy her enough. “Thank you, Master. Your wisdom will continue to guide me.”

Kylo stood, signaling that their session was coming to an end. Zafra followed suit.

“I am suspending your physical training for the next week. Instead of training with the knights usual, you will meditate. Try to strengthen your connection with the Force and think more carefully about what I have said. Only once you have regained your concentration will I allow you to train with us again.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Good.” And with that, Kylo strode out of the training room, and Zafra sat back down to follow his advice and try to regain her focus.

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“What do you mean you can’t rewire a calcinator?! It’s a _calcinator_!” you screamed. Oh Lord, not only had Hux sent you help you didn’t ask for (despite needing it), he sent you the _worst help ever_. Matt knew absolutely nothing. How he was even a mere radar technician on the _Finalizer_ was, frankly, a gigantic mystery.

“I’m sorry!” Matt shouted back, raising his hands in surrender. “The calcinators downstairs are…different. I’m not used to working with ones like these.”

_What_ in the name of all that is bad and satanic was going on here? Did he not…? Oh no.

(Somewhere back in the Milky Way, a star was going supernova)

“ _Matt_ ,” you seethed, “A calcinator is a _calcinator_. All of them operate by the _exact same principles_. Maybe this one looks different than the ones you normally rewire, but rewiring it _is the exact same process!_ How…how are you even allowed to be working here? Who the hell hired you?!”

Matt looked more pissed off than he had any right to be. He was the incompetent one and getting angry at his _superior officer_ was definitely not going to help his case. You were definitely going to make sure that Matt got fired after this. He clearly didn’t know what he was doing, and someone like that was a danger to the entire ship’s technical operations team.

“Look, I just don’t know how to rewire this one, _okay_? I’m sorry!” he seethed. Oh hell no. Dumbass over here wasn’t going to pull that bullshit with you. You were a _commander_ now. It was time to start acting like it.

“I am your superior officer, and you will show me the respect I deserve. And you most certainly _will not take that tone of voice with me_. Especially when you’re the one who doesn’t even know what the fuck he is doing,” you hissed. Matt looked slightly taken aback by your ire. What, did he not get yelled at enough? You found that hard to believe, considering how incompetent he was.

You hadn’t even had your muffin yet. Hux _promised_ you more chocolate chip muffins and so far, not only had he not kept said promise, he had sent you the most incompetent technician in the galaxy.

“Move over, Matt. I’ll show you how this is done.” You shoved him out of the way and began rewiring the damn thing yourself. You wouldn’t even have to rewire it if Matt’s stupidity hadn’t knocked the calcinator out of alignment _in the first place_.

“I’ll be sending a scathing report to your supervisor,” you grumbled, “Be thankful your contract isn’t under my jurisdiction or I’d fire you myself.”

Matt for his part looked thoroughly chastised and sat quietly as you worked. After about five minutes, you slammed the panel shut and turned to him. 

“I hope you were paying attention. I won’t explain again as we have _two more_ to rewire. But we will do those later. Right now, I need to rebuild the motherboard for this control panel. Go over to my toolkit and bring me the pliers and the soldering iron.”

Matt didn’t know how to tell you that he didn’t know what a soldering iron was.

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Savarin Ren was confused. Kylo had summoned him to his quarters (something he never does) and Savarin had rushed over, thinking that something serious had happened. Kylo was an intensely private man. Savarin can count on one hand the number of people that had seen his quarters.

Fully prepared to find Kylo in some odd conversation with the scavenger-Jedi girl (Savarin really wondered what was going on with that and why Kylo hadn’t sent someone out to finish her off. It was getting annoying), he instead he found his boss shrugging on a reflective vest meant for a…radar technician.

“Um, Master, what exactly is it that you are doing…sir?” Savarin asked. Maybe that Terran _Twilight Zone_ show you and Zafra constantly watched was onto something. Savarin felt as though he were right in the middle of it.

“Savarin,” Kylo said, “What do you know about our newest addition to our inner circle?”

Savarin blinked at the complete non-sequitur.

“Uh, you mean the Commander, sir?”

Kylo nodded. “Yes, what do you know of her? Zafra is quite attached to her. I’d like to know why.”

This entire situation was getting weirder by the minute. Savarin had no idea how to handle it. He could start by answering his boss’ questions, he supposed.

“I don’t know much, sir. All I do know is that she’s damn good at her job and occasionally says something amusing.” Savarin shrugged. “Perhaps Zafra is feeling lonely? She is rather lacking in female company.”

Rohini Ren may have also been a female Knight of Ren, but she rarely interacted with _anyone_ , not even _Kylo_ outside of missions and training. Very few people knew what she did all day. If Savarin didn’t know any better, he would have assumed that Rohini was a vampire, given how she was practically allergic to sunlight. She certainly did not have the mischievous streak that Zafra did—oh no. Rohini was an absolute stickler for the rules and the old Knights’ Code (the same one that Kylo allowed his merry murderers to take liberties with). Rohini was the archetypal reclusive, curmudgeon.

“Hmmm, perhaps that is true,” Kylo said, jolting Savarin back to the present. “However, I want to know more about the Commander. I want to truly assess her loyalty to the Order and to us. She is quite a remarkable opportunist.”

Savarin couldn’t disagree with that.

“Have you detected any sort of deception from her?” Savarin asked. Kylo shook his head.

“No, but that does not mean that I fully trust her.”

Well fair. But why did Kylo hire her in the first place? Surely _someone_ could perform her duties to the same standards. She can’t possibly be that unreplaceable. But Savarin knew better than to question his boss. Kylo did strange things sometimes, and it was often in Savarin’s best interests to stay out of the way.

“How are you planning to ‘get to know her?’” Savarin asked, “I assume it has something to do with the technician uniform?”

Kylo gave an unsettling grin. “I heard her whining to Zafra about how she never gets any help in doing her job, like she used to. So, I’m going to give her some.”

Oh.

Oh no.

If there was one thing Savarin knew for sure, it was that this was not going to end well.

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You were finally starting to understand why Kylo Ren stabbed control panels with his doom stick. Frankly, if your job wasn’t to _repair the damage from said doom stick_ , you would have absolutely smashed the panels to smithereens yourself.

You thought you had seen it all in terms of abject incompetence and stupidity. But no. In fact, the dictionary definition of ‘stupid’ needed to be updated and replaced with a single name.

_Matt_.

Matt, the Radar Technician.

Matt, the idiotic Radar Technician.

Matt, the idiotic, incompetent Radar Technician.

Matt, the idiotic, incompetent Radar Technician who you were cheerfully going to murder.

It was all Matt’s fault that repairing the cannon control panel took so long. You would have gotten it done in half the time by yourself. Perhaps Hux was trying to be _nice_ by sending you a technician to help you out. But you were fairly convinced Hux picked the most moronic individual he could find just to piss you off. And you had done nothing to deserve it.

Well, maybe you had insulted Hux one too many times, but you never said anything incriminating _to his face_. The least Hux could do was thank you for solving his problems. But noooo. The ginger fuckboi just _had_ to make your life harder, which clearly seemed to be his entire function in this stupid organization.

And if that wasn’t all, Matt, after enduring your tirades about his lack of skills had decided that _making small talk_ was a good idea. The nerve!

Matt had finally found your soldering iron and was watching you build a motherboard when he asked:

“So, uh, what do you think of Kylo Ren?”

You had paused in your soldering and slowly turned your head, making it abundantly clear how you felt about hearing the sound of his voice.

“What about Kylo Ren?” you asked, your voice giving no indication of the brewing storm that was about to be unleashed onto poor, dumb Matt.

“Well, I just figured since, you know, you work so closely with him and the knights you might have an opinion.” Matt shrugged. “I’m just closeted away in a basement. I don’t really get the opportunity to know what’s going on up here.”

You only just refrained from rolling your eyes. You barely knew Kylo Ren, but from your limited interactions with him, you found him to be exactly as you had expected. A temperamental manchild who hid underneath a black garbage can and carried around a photon sword. Frankly, if there were an embodiment of Teddy Roosevelt’s advice, _“speak softly and carry a big stick,”_ it would be Kylo Ren.

Matt’s eyes darkened slightly, but you didn’t notice, too engrossed in your work.

“He’s fine,” you finally replied. “I don’t interact with him much, and that’s perfectly fine by me. Now, if you could please stop with this inane line of questioning and actually focus on the task at hand, that would be just dandy.”

Matt huffed quietly and continued handing you the tools you requested. Within an hour, your work on the control panel was complete, and you all but shooed him out of the room. He left while you were typing aggressively on your datapad, no doubt composing a scathing message to General Hux about him.

Unfortunately for you, General Hux would have no idea what you were talking about.

Entering his quarters, Kylo pulled off his wig and tossed it aside, doing the same with the reflective vest. He’d spent the greater part of the day repairing the control panel with you, or rather watching you repair the control panel while you berated him for his incompetence. He certainly didn’t learn all that much about you, but he had learned enough for one day.

For one, he knew that you were easily angered and constantly grumpy. But you had figured out how to keep most of those emotions off of your face, even though you did fail on occasion.

And for second, you had an incredibly chaotic mind. It was difficult for him to concentrate when you were around. Sure, you were amusing, but when you weren’t focused on ripping ~~him~~ Matt to pieces, your thoughts turned from amusing to fascinating. Despite the tirade of insults, you had unleashed in your head against him, Kylo Ren found you incredibly interesting. There was a lot he had yet to learn about you. Maybe that’s why Zafra hung around you all the time.

In conclusion, Kylo Ren had decided that he liked you.

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..

...

....

A lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are we starting to see a semblance of a plot? *le gasp* 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this one! I'm so encouraged by all the positive feedback this little story has received so far! You all are are incredibly kind. Truly. As always, if you have any comments, feel free to leave them! I love hearing your thoughts. 
> 
> Until next time, friends!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! Here's a new chapter, once again earlier than I had expected to post! Please enjoy!

Something was wrong.

_Very_ wrong.

It had been about three days since your encounter with Matt the Radar Technician (who according to Hux, doesn’t exist and despite his multiple reassurances that he would figure it out, you didn’t believe him), and in that span of time, you had seen the Supreme Leader _six times_.

**_Six_ **

Once is chance, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern, as the old earthling saying goes. And you had encountered the Supreme Leader twice the requisite amount of times for you to start being concerned.

If you didn’t know any better, you would say he was following you.

Now, to be fair, the majority of these times he didn’t say anything to you. The first four times, you just happened to pass him in the hallways (which had never happened despite being in this job for nearly a month). This in and of itself, you supposed, was unusual but not strange. What was _strange_ was that he always acknowledged your presence with a simple head nod or a polite, “Commander.” He never did that. To anyone. Not even Zafra. Or Hux. (What the fuck?)

The fifth time, you caught him about to skewer a BB-10 droid near your quarters (what he was doing down the hallway from your quarters at that time of night is still a mystery considering his own were _quite a ways away_ ), and you all but threw your body across the poor little thing to get him to leave it alone. Which he did, promptly. After _apologizing!_ ( _le gasp_ ) 

And the final time, he had walked into your office and asked you _what you were working on_. The exchange was short lived but no less freaky. You were working quietly in your office-lab on the next generation of droids. The Supreme Leader had requested you to build, what he termed, “diplomatic droids” that would accompany him on missions and provide him with useful information on not just the opposing party’s history and culture, but that could also analyze human behavior and discreetly notify him if the mission appeared to be heading south. Usually, he had a team of diplomats and analysts to help him do this, but given how many delegations demanded that he go by himself or with minimal staff, he needed an alternative. And very few people would blink at the presence of a droid.

It was a difficult task, and you had been up working on it frantically, considering the Supreme Leader wanted them ready by his mission to the planet Urmila in two days’ time. You were in the process of building the receiver that would go inside his helmet and allow him to discreetly communicate with the droid when said Supreme Leader waltzed into your lab. His arrival shocked you so much that you dropped the wire you were holding, mentally cursing at having to find the tiny bastard amongst the sea of crap littering your workspace.

“Commander,” the Supreme Leader boomed.

“Sir,” you replied, gulping, “How can I help you?”

The Supreme Leader was silent, studying you. You stared right back hoping that maybe if you thought something loud and obnoxious, he would get freaked out and leave you alone. If anyone could freak out the Supreme Leader with their general clusterfuckery, it would be you.

You settled on playing “Barbie Girl” in your head as loud as you could and patiently waited for a reaction. Ren shifted slightly, but that was the only indication that he was even aware of what was going on in your mind. Damn that black garbage can.

“Commander,” he repeated. Ugh, “Barbie Girl” was failing you. He wasn’t leaving. _Here, have some Justin Bieber, you metal headed murderer. I have too much work to deal with this shit!_

Kylo Ren was still unperturbed. Anyone who could withstand “Baby” for longer than thirty seconds deserved the First Order equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Even your own resolve was failing. You couldn’t keep this up much longer before that ancient pop singer melted your few, precious brain cells and you _definitely_ wouldn’t be able to get your work done.

“What are you working on, Commander?” Ren asked...rather politely. You had never known the man to make anything less than a demand (then again you’d known him, for what, a month?).

You blinked at the request. Since when did Ren _care_ about what you were doing so long as you did your work (which you weren’t going to finish unless this conversation wrapped up. Chip Chop).

“Um,” you started, shaking your head to clear your rather ridiculous thoughts (stupid brain), “I’m just working on the receiver for your helmet, sir. It will allow the droid to communicate with you and feed you information. I should hopefully have it ready by this evening and can install it whenever you are free.”

“Hmmm,” Ren responded, “Very good. This receiver. Tell me how you’re building it.”

Uh.

What?

Since when was Ren interested in _how_ the things worked so long as they _worked_?

Instantly, Justin Bieber shut off, and your mind began calling up images of the blueprints you had for the receiver, along with circuit diagrams. Realizing you hadn’t said anything, you started babbling off the basic circuitry of the device, hoping to keep it concise yet understandable. You weren’t sure you were doing a very good job, but you figured Ren would eventually get tired and leave.

Except he didn’t.

Oh no. That bastard strolled even closer to your bench and began peering down at the tiny device you were currently putting together. His eyes landed on a small green, rectangular object and he began to reach for it, no doubt wanting to inspect it further.

“Don’t touch that!” you shrieked, and immediately, Ren pulled back his hand as if he had been burned. You gulped.

“I’m sorry, sir. It’s just that, that’s the motherboard for the device—it controls all of its operations. I spent several hours making it that small and if you pick it up with your hands, you could crush it. And then I’d have to start again.” You hurriedly explained, hoping that Ren wouldn’t stab you with his big stick for your minor freak out.

“If—if you want, sir, you can use this some tweezers to pick it up?” you offered, pushing said tweezers across the table. Ren waved his hand dismissively in response.

“There is no need, Commander. My apologies, I was simply curious.”

Did Ren just apologize to you for the _second time_? And not only that, but try to explain his behavior?

Oh boy, you were going to have a heart attack if he kept this up. Your poor, fragile constitution couldn’t take this weirdness.

“Will these droids be finished in time for our mission to Urmila?” Ren finally asked, straightening up and looking down at you with the classic Unnerving Stare™.

“Yes, sir,” you replied. _If you leave me alone and let me work, that is_ , you traitorously thought before you could stop yourself. Ren stared at you for a long moment, and _oh no_ , you were certainly about to get bruleéd with that death stick. Clearly your lack of filter had gone too far this time.

Instead Ren just took a step back and nodded. “Carry on, Commander,” he said before swooshing out of the room leaving you confused and very weirded out. 

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Urmila was a rather tiny planet, if it really could be called a planet. Perhaps if Neil deGrasse Tyson were still alive, he would demote the poor thing like he did to Pluto. Poor Pluto, it never did anything to anyone. It was just lonely, cold, and misunderstood. Much like yourself. You shook your head. Now was not the time to be comparing yourself to a...frozen piece of rock millions of lightyears away _in another fucking galaxy_.

Point was, Urmila was not a planet that the First Order should have any interest in. It didn’t have any interesting or useful natural resources, nor was it situated in a strategic place that might make it important for trade. Urmila did however reside in the star system Ayodhya, which did have several important planets, including the planet Kaikeyi where Zafra and her fellow knight, Rohini, were both from. When you heard this, you were excited for Zafra and had asked if she was planning to head off the _Finalizer_ and visit home. Unfortunately, she had looked less than thrilled about being back in the vicinity and had curtly cut you off when you asked about her family.

“Assuming they are still alive,” she said in a clipped tone, “I have no desire to see them.”

That had swiftly ended that conversation.

You didn’t really blame Zafra. After your mother died (and despite your complaining, you did love her very much), the little family you had left on Earth didn’t care about you, and you really couldn’t give a shit about them in return. So you had hightailed it off-world as fast as you could and didn’t look back. If you ever did venture in the Milky Way’s corner of the universe again, you supposed you might visit Earth so you could eat some real food. But that was about it.

Anyway, both you and Zafra had plenty keeping you busy in preparation for your mission to Urmila—there was virtually no time for wool-gathering or dredging up the past. Urmila was part of the First Order, so you were meeting a new alien race, the Mitthai, who did not want the negotiations to be conducted on their home-world. You most certainly didn’t blame them. Since Urmila was the closest planet to their system, it would serve as host. The Mitthai, you’d been told, were a rather xenophobic species—incredibly suspicious of outsiders and potentially hostile. These negotiations could turn from bad to Luke Skywalker in a matter of seconds, which is why the Supreme Leader had asked for you to build droids for him. The Mitthai were only bringing three delegates and no guards, so they demanded that the First Order match their numbers. Which meant that the Supreme Leader and General Hux, and probably a diplomat or an interpreter would be representing the First Order.

You had just finished making the final adjustment to the lone droid you planned to send with the Supreme Leader. You’d installed his receiver in his helmet only just that morning (making this now the _seventh_ time you had seen him that week, although this one was intentional), and were now making your way, with the droid, down to the hanger where you’d load it up onto the transport ship and send it on its merry way. You decided to call this particular droid ZR-31, the initials and age of your favorite Knight of Ren. When she had found out, she looked so touched that you thought she might cry. Thankfully for both of you, Zafra quickly schooled her features and had given you a brief one-armed hug (which she had never done before—what a week this was turning out to be!) before scampering off to do Force knows what.

You entered the hangar with the droid and made your way over to the transport vessel where General Hux, Captain Phasma, and a cadre of about fifteen troopers were waiting. Phasma and the troops would be stashed away somewhere in the complex in case the negotiations took an unexpected turn. If the Mitthai truly thought the First Order wouldn’t bring backup, they were more naïve than you thought.

“Good morning, Commander,” Hux greeted you, oddly cheerful for this time of the morning, “I trust the droid is ready for our mission?”

What a stupid question, of course it was. You wouldn’t have brought ZR here if it weren’t ready.

“Yes sir,” you said as politely as you could.

“Good,” Hux said, adjusting his gloves, “I trust there will be no malfunctions?”

Who did he think you were? The dumbass who designed the Death Star?

“No, there won’t be, General,” you said curtly. You really wanted to just drop off this thing and get back to the lab. “If for some reason there is, the Supreme Leader can discreetly and immediately deactivate it.”

Hux grinned in response.

You didn’t like this.

“Oh, I don’t think that will be necessary, Commander. If the droid gives us any trouble, you will be there to personally attend to the problem.”

Um.

_What?_

_You_ were going to Urmila with Hux and the Supreme Leader? That was ridiculous. What would you even be doing while you were down there? You had zero training for this kind of mission and would be _completely useless_ during the negotiations. Especially if things went south, as they would likely do with a race as hostile as the Mitthai. You could barely prevent yourself from getting Crème Commandered during your encounters with the Supreme Leader. What made them think that you would be an asset on a mission like this? And that’s exactly what you asked Hux.

Hux shrugged in response. The stupid fuckboi didn’t even wipe that smug grin off his face.

“How should I know,” he finally replied, “The Supreme Leader himself personally requested your presence. It was a rather last minute request as well. Perhaps he doesn’t trust your famed engineering skills as much as you thought.”

That...motherfucker. If he really had such a problem with your work, he could, well, _address it with you_ like a normal functioning adult. Preferably in a locale where you didn’t have to interact with foreign dignitaries and possibly get shot if things went wrong. Despite what your actions said, you didn’t _exactly_ have that big of a death wish. At least, not one big enough that you’d want blaster fire to be the end of you. If you were going to die, you were going to die in the least painful way possible, dammit.

Any further protest that you were going to make went out the airlock when HRH strode into the hangar (twenty minutes late, according to Hux’s not-so-discreet mumbling). Before he entered the shuttle, he paused and looked at you. Black Garbage Can Stare on full blast.

“The General has made you aware of your duties, yes?” he asked. All you could do was nod sharply.

“Good,” Ren said, “Your presence on the planet is strictly for maintenance purposes, both for the droid and any other equipment that may need it. You will be in the negotiation room with us but you will not say anything. If you are spoken to, then we will answer for you. Not a word. Is that clear?”

You gulped. “Crystal, sir.”

And with that, Ren strode into the shuttle, black cape once again billowing out from behind him as if he were some kind of dark Avenger. You supposed, in a way, he was. If only Marvel still existed. They’d certainly get a kick out of him.

Sighing, you entered the shuttle with ZR and General Hux. Phasma and her troops followed shortly after. It wasn’t until you were well and truly buckled in and the craft had left the hangar that you realized, they hadn’t exactly given you a chance to run back to your quarters and pack any clothes. You wrinkled your nose, hoping that you would only be on the planet’s surface for a day or so.

If you had to sleep in your dirty underwear, there would be hell to pay. 

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Zafra Ren missed her new friend. She had only seen her a handful of times in the past few days because she was too busy working on Kylo’s new diplomatic droids. Zafra was rather skeptical about the need for those droids, but whatever the Supreme Leader wanted, he got. And now finding out that her friend was being sent as part of the delegation team to Urmila to supposedly “keep an eye on the droid,” she knew that it would be at least another day before she saw her again. She was not happy about this.

No, Zafra Ren was not happy about this.

Because she think she had finally figured out exactly why her friend had been so busy.

Kylo Ren had developed an interest in her, and Zafra Ren wasn’t sure why. At first, she had assumed that Kylo merely tolerated the Commander, like General Hux did. Zafra didn’t exactly blame him—the Commander was an acquired taste for those that didn’t share her sense of humor (unlike Zafra, who was always up for Hux bashing and generally intimidating the crap out of stupid people). However, Kylo had gone from wanting to toss her into open space, to hiring her, to mysteriously “running” into her at odd times of the day. It was so completely unlike him, and Zafra thought she was just being overly sensitive until the one of the other knights brought it up.

Zafra had been in the cafeteria with Arvind Ren, eating whatever slop they happened to be serving, when Savarin Ren turned up. Rohini was noticeably and unsurprisingly absent from their unofficial lunch meetups. She never interacted with anybody. The same couldn’t be said for the Terrorizing Trio of Alha, Taegar, and Kiro who normally loved socializing, but apparently they were off doing Force knows what—probably terrorizing some stormtroopers. Zafra didn’t interact with them much. She didn’t care for their stupid, “big-dick” energy. Zafra knew for a fact they didn’t have big dicks, despite what they claimed.

Either way, it made for a rather quiet lunch as Savarin and Arvind didn’t normally say anything when stressed. But this time, that changed when Savarin actually opened his mouth to discuss the one subject that they all tried to avoid like the Serennian Plague—Kylo Ren. And he didn’t even try to ease into the topic. He just spit it out.

“Master Ren has been a lot calmer the past few weeks,” Savarin noted, “He’s had fewer outbursts.”

Zafra paused midway in eating her slop, letting is slide off her spoon and back into her bowl with an unpleasant _plop_. Arvind Ren, however, did not look phased at all by the discussion.

“It’s that droid programmer he’s hired,” he mumbled, “She’s probably done something to him.”

Zafra turned her head slowly towards Arvind, glaring at him. She dared him to speak ill of her friend once again. She fucking dared him. And that moron didn’t even have the awareness to recognize a warning even if it nearly smacked him in the face, like she was about to do.

“I mean seriously,” Arvind said, stirring his slop, “Ever since he hired her, he’s been preoccupied with giving her useless tasks to do. I’ve seen him try to get her attention on occasion. He’s not exactly subtle, she’s just horrendously oblivious. I’m sure he just wants to screw her—seems the only reason he would hire her.”

Savarin turned white. He never meant the conversation to devolve into the Arvind Pity Hour. He knew Arvind was upset that Master Ren didn’t give him “enough attention,” but really this was just childish. And if he kept up this line of conversation, Zafra was certainly going to break his neck.

“Perhaps, Arvind,” Zafra said, very calmly and politely, her voice giving no indication of how much she wanted to murder him, “Master Ren hired her because she knows how to do her job. Some people actually _deserve_ to be here, you know.”

Arvind’s head snapped towards Zafra, glare in full force.

“What exactly are you implying, Zafra? That _I_ don’t deserve to be here?!” he hissed.

Zafra shrugged. “I said nothing of the sort, Arvind. How _ever_ did you pick up that subtext from my words? If you’re struggling with imposter syndrome, there’s a highly skilled, trained counselor aboard the _Finalizer_ who is adequately equipped to work with you. I suggest you seek her services.”

Arvind Ren looked as though he was ready to explode. If Savarin didn’t know any better, he would think that Arvind would have just hit Zafra right there in the cafeteria. But no, Arvind believed that personal grudges should be handled in private.

“If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I have some business I need to attend to.” And with that, Zafra dumped her barely touched slop and strode out of the cafeteria, mentally plotting Arvind’s demise.

Nobody insulted Zafra’s friends and got away with it.

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Urmila, as a planet, really wasn’t all that bad. In fact, it was rather pleasant. It reminded you of Earth with all of its greenery and waterfalls and chirping birds and la dee da.

You kid. Urmila was no transcendent Rivendell. It was a decent enough planet such that you weren’t freezing your ass off or about to melt. Plus you were spending most of your time on this illustrious planet inside the First Order base anyway. So even if you decided you hated the weather, it wouldn’t have mattered. However, after several hours of being trapped inside this stuffy complex, in this stuffy room, with these stuffy dignitaries, you would have given just about anything to get some fresh air. Heck, you could be on Hoth right now, and you would very likely pay someone to let you step outside into the permanent blizzard just so you can get away from all this _boring_ ruling-the-galaxy-shit that Kylo Ren and Friends had so graciously let you observe.

In your defense, you had actually listened attentively for the first hour of these negotiations. It was a wonderful opportunity to see how new systems became part of the First Order, so despite your initial complaints, you were somewhat intrigued by the proceedings. However, once the Mitthai had started talking about the potential falling price of their _herbaceous plant_ exports, you’d completely zoned out. Instead, you just poked away at your datapad, monitoring ZR’s functions. The little droid was performing quite well. It sat quietly, occasionally chirping through the receiver in Ren’s helmet, no doubt telling him some useful information about the Mitthian economy, especially when the delegates tried to exaggerate the status of it. The droid had a tendency to ramble, so you would occasionally have to manually shut it up when the point had been made (a mild deviation you intended to fix later).

By hour four of these proceedings, you had just about had enough, and it looked as though ZR had exhausted all of the information it could give Ren right now. How he and Hux were still holding up with perfectly poised poker faces was something of a gigantic mystery. You were having a really hard time stifling your yawns. Unfortunately, round about this time, things took a turn for the interesting—and not in a good way. Just as you were about to finish reciting the 100th prime number, one of the Mitthai delegates abruptly stood up and began _shouting_ (!!) at the Supreme Leader and General Hux.

“Supreme Leader, General Hux, I am sorry. But I simply _cannot_ authorize our planet joining your Order. You have given us many offers, and for that we are grateful, but the drawbacks outweigh the benefits, and we simply just do not need the protection of the First Order that desperately.”

You looked up from your datapad to stare at the shouting dignitary. You may be a complete dunce when it comes to people skills and by extension, diplomacy, but even you knew that this was bad.

General Hux heaved a great sigh, looking not in the slightest bit perturbed by the dignitary’s dramatic refusal of First Order membership.

“My dear sir,” Hux began (you may hate the fuckboi, but even you have to admit, he can be a real people person if he needed to be), “We have offered everything that we possibly can. Is there _anything else_ that your people would want? Anything at all that we have not yet offered you, in exchange for membership?”

The Mitthian and his associate thought for a moment before looking at his two associates. After a moment he turned back to General Hux and nodded.

“Yes, there is perhaps one more thing you can possibly give to me.”

Hux sucked in a breath. “Of course, name it.”

And then, in the biggest what-the-fuck move you have ever had the privilege of bearing witness to, the dignitary pointed at _you_.

“Her, the one who controls the droid. I want her.”

Oh no.

This was bad.

What the fuck did they want with you? And even more importantly, _how did they know you were there to operate the droid?_ Hux had introduced you as his _scribe_ , not a droid programmer for fuck’s sake. Was this race telepathic and your studies had failed to inform you of this?

You heard a growl from somewhere next to you, jolting you out of your (admittedly deserved) panic.

“ _NO!_ Absolutely NOT!” Ren boomed, “That is completely _out of the question_.”

The dignitary smirked a smirk you most certainly did not like very much. This was the smirk of mass-murdering madmen. You were not going to go anywhere near that psycho. No sir. You’ll take the Ginger Fuckboi over this guy any day.

“I’m afraid you have no choice, Supreme Leader. You’ve been lying to us from the very beginning. This girl is no scribe. She is a droid programmer, here to control that droid, which has been feeding you information about my people from the moment you stepped foot on this planet—”

Oh holy fuck, what in the name of all that is bad and satanic was going on here?

“—And I also happen to know that you have broken our three-membered delegation agreement and that you have an entire squadron of troopers waiting outside this complex for your command. So you see, sir, you are in no position to be making any sort of demands. Especially not when I have backup of my own, ready to obliterate your squadron.”

How in the hell did this freaky thing know all of this? Very few people knew of this mission, and very few people knew what this droid was, which meant—

Oh no.

Oh seven hells no.

Oh Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, no.

The First Order had a mole. And said mole must be incredibly close to the Supreme Leader.

You were betting on it being the Ginger Fuckboi. Oh, you just _knew it_. That asshole could never hide his contempt for Kylo Ren. Who else could it be?

Kylo Ren stood up abruptly, knocking over his chair and igniting his photon sword. Oh here we go. You were about to be a first-hand witness to a murder, exactly what you were hoping to avoid.

“Really, Supreme Leader?” the dignitary snarked, “You think you can _kill me_? Even if you did, my backup would be surrounding you within seconds. You have nowhere to go.”

“I don’t think so,” Ren shouted, “Your backup is _nothing_ compared to me! _Nothing!_ I can take them all out easily. Why don’t you try?”

Something was wrong.

Well yes _of course_ something was wrong, but no, something was very, very wrong. While the dignitary and Ren were busy shouting at each other, one of the Mitthian delegate’s associates was quickly readying something underneath his large robes. You could barely made it out, but based on the position of the thing in his robes...there was only one possibility.

He had a blaster. That motherfucker had a blaster and he was going to shoot the Supreme Leader with it.

Shit, you had to warn him. You had to—

“Sir!” you screamed, “He has a blaster! He has a—”

And before you could finish your sentence, that bastard Mitthian took out said blaster, took aim, and fired at _you_.

**Schooonk**

****

Pain exploded in your left shoulder. You cried out, sliding down the wall, gripping your damaged shoulder. That son-of-a-bantha—!!

**Schooonk**

This time, a second blast hit your left side. You collapsed to the floor in pain, tears flooding your eyes. It was excruciating. This was exactly what you were hoping to avoid. Of course the first time you go on an away mission, you just _had_ to get shot. Mother of God. You barely registered the commotion going on around you—a bunch of shouts, a flash or two of Ren’s photon sword.

Your eyelids began to droop. The pain. It was too much. You just needed to rest, and maybe it would go away. Yes, some rest. You just needed to sleep.

You just needed to...

... _sleep_

And you closed your eyes. And slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mwahahahahaha! I hope you liked that ending and where the plot is going! As always, I am so blown away by all the positive feedback this story has been receiving. Truly guys, I am lost for words!
> 
> Also I must ask your patience as I head into final exam season. I may not be able to update once weekly like I have been doing the past couple of times. Bear with me! As always, if you have any comments, any at all, please please do let me know :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Thanks for bearing with me through these sporadic updates and my impending doom of final exams. The next chapter will likely be up after those are finished, so around about 1.5-2 weeks or so. Hope you enjoy this update!

_Ow_

Someone, turn off those damn lights.

Please.

_I’ve died and have gone to heaven,_ you thought, _maybe this is the bright light that everyone claims you see._

You were fairly certain that you hadn’t done enough good during your lifetime to be admitted to heaven, but hey, you’d take what you could get.

“Ah, you’re waking up, I see.”

Was that…

Was that the voice of General Hux? What? Since when had they allowed _Hux_ into heaven?? This was supposed to be heaven! Why did you have to continue to deal with him?!

Unless you hadn’t gone to heaven and you had, as you had suspected you would, gone to hell. And having to spend eternity with General Hux was definitely something you would consider hell.

Or more likely, you had not died at all, and you were in fact, stuck in existence with General Hux and Co.

Great.

You started blinking open your eyes, squinting at the lights shining in your face. Damn, they really hurt. And your poor head was not fairing much better. It felt as though a bunch of stormtroopers had decided to use it as the unfortunate dancefloor for their rather lively, energetic bachata. With great difficulty, you managed to force your eyes open, and were greeted by the fuzzy form of General Hux carrying a…wait a second…was that a _cat?_

“Kitty,” you mumbled, rather pathetically. If you were feeling like yourself, you would have cringed at your ridiculousness. But instead of making fun of you, Hux gave a soft smile (which you had definitely never seen before).

“I was informed that you liked animals, so I thought I would bring her. Maybe she can cheer you up.” And with that, Hux gently placed the cat into your lap. She looked confused for a second before gingerly going over to sniff your fingers. If you had the strength, you’d reach up and pet her, but alas, you just couldn’t bring yourself to do so. The cat however eventually decided that she liked your hand and began to settle down and curl up next to you, her warm body pressed up against your side and her head laying halfway in your palm. Hux raised his eyebrows at the scene.

“My, my,” he said, “You should be honored. Millicent normally doesn’t take kindly to strangers.”

_Millicent._ So that was the pretty, orange tabby’s name. You couldn’t think of a more grandma-like name for such a sweet, young thing. But oh well. You supposed you could put up with calling her that since you really weren’t in any position to make up a name for her yourself. After a few minutes of gently stroking the cat’s head, you finally felt well enough to talk to the General properly.

“Where am I?” you asked him. He frowned, looking very concerned.

“You’re in the medbay,” he said, “How much do you remember, Commander?”

Well, let’s see. A few ugly Mitthian dignitaries. Shouting. Someone pointing a goddamn blaster at you. And pain. A fuckton of pain. Such intense pain that the memory of it, you felt, would cause you to pass out again. And you told the General so. Oh and also, there was something about a mole? Honestly, you don’t remember a single thing beyond the pain.

“I see,” the General said, clearing his throat, “You’ve been placed in a medically induced coma for the last three days. The doctors saw fit to try to bring you out of it today, now that the majority of your injuries has been healed.”

Well, that was optimistic at least.

“You were very, very lucky, Commander,” Hux continued, “Had the second blast struck just a few centimeters left, several of your major organs would have been severely damaged. It would have been possible to save you, but unlikely.”

Yikes. This would have to count as your second near brush with death…the first one being when you nearly got pummeled by a bus back on Earth. At least termination by blaster fire would have been slightly more dignified than getting pancacked by a lackadaisical school bus driver.

“I see,” you mumbled, “So, when can I get out of here?” You wanted nothing more than to go back to your very comfortable bed in your beautiful quarters and pass out and be left alone.

“I’m afraid it’s not so simple,” said a new voice. Hux swiveled his head around, and you craned your neck to try to see who it was, but you couldn’t get a great look from your purely horizontal state. The person approached your bed and pressed a button by your head that allowed the back of the bed to raise, allowing you to see who it was.

“I’m Doctor Khar,” the man said, “I am the surgeon in charge of your case.”

“Thanks,” you said. If it weren’t for this man and his team, you would have been dead.

“You’re welcome,” he said. “While I have repaired the damage to your shoulder and your side, you are still going to need several weeks of physical therapy to gain back the full range of motion in your shoulder. Your side will also be sore for several more weeks, so I do not recommend any strenuous physical activity for at least eight weeks.”

Well that you could certainly do. You hated exercise, and beyond your mandated exercise routine, you didn’t actively do much else in that sphere. And it sounds like Ren was going to have to postpone your blaster training, so you wouldn’t even need to touch one of those for a while. You could certainly get used to medically mandated laziness.

“Since you have just woken up, I would like to keep you here in the medbay for another evening for observation. If all looks well, I can send you back to your quarters tomorrow morning,” Doctor Khar said, “A nurse will be assigned to come check on you twice a day and to deliver your required medications. Your physical therapy will start the day after tomorrow.”

Oh gross. You hadn’t expected that to be so soon.

“Doctor,” you started, “How long do you expect before I can return to work?”

Khar sighed.

“Well, considering that your job requires the copious use of your hands and arms, I am not comfortable letting you return until you have gained full range of motion in your shoulder.”

You felt your stomach drop. Oh no. Does this mean…

“You will be out of work for a minimum of six weeks. I have already spoken to the Supreme Leader about this, and he has agreed. You are not to return to work until you have fully recovered.”

Ugh, seriously? You barely lasted five days under house arrest. How were you supposed to last _six weeks_?

Doctor Khar frowned, clearly seeing where your mind was going. “If you follow your physical therapy routine diligently, come to your scheduled appointments, and do the assigned exercises every day, then six weeks should be sufficient for your shoulder to heal. However, if you do not follow the routine, you could potentially be out of work for much longer.”

Ugh, yes, ok, you got it, hotshot. Follow the physical therapy and you’ll be fine.

“If you do not have any more questions, I shall leave you to rest. Should you need anything, ring the call button and a nurse will come to assist you. One should be here within the next half hour to administer your next dose of pain meds.” And with that, Doctor Khar gave a sharp nod to Hux and strode out of your room.

Hux sighed and turned back to you. “I’m afraid I must be going now, Commander. I have a lot of work to do and Millicent hasn’t yet had her dinner.”

No! Don’t take the cat away please! You would beg Hux. Anything to keep Millicent with you.

Your ridiculously heartbroken expression at Millicent’s abrupt departure must have shown on your face because Hux looked quite freaked out and very concerned.

“I’ll—see what I can do about bringing her tomorrow morning,” he said, gently picking up the cat. “Sleep well, Commander, we all are hoping that you make a speedy recovery.” He gave you one last nod before walking out with the cat, leaving you incredibly confused. What was it with the fuckboi being _nice_ to you all of a sudden? Not only did he come visit you in the hospital and _not_ berate you for something, he also went so far as to bring his cat to _cheer you up._

You let out a long breath before leaning back in the bed and using the remote to recline it backwards slightly. Things on the _Finalizer_ were starting to take an incredibly weird turn, and you were very unsure of what to do.

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“Wake up, wake up, wake up!” you heard someone shouting. This someone, whoever it was, was not only shouting but also poking you. You internally groaned. You had just been shot, multiple times, had only just woken up from a medically induced coma. Couldn’t you just catch a break??

“ _What??_ ” you growled, forcing your eyes open. Only to find that it was Zafra so incessantly poking your uninjured shoulder. Now you felt kind of bad. Zafra must have been worried about you this whole time. You worried about her whenever she went on missions or you hadn’t seen her in a few days.

Zafra grinned at seeing you awake.

“It’s time for you to get out of this Force forsaken place!” she cheered, “I shall be your escort!”

You frowned. Should some lowly medbay attendant be wheelchairing you back to your quarters? Not Zafra? Who likely had other things to be doing?

Zafra pouted at that thought.

“You are my friend,” she said, “Am I not allowed to help you? Isn’t that what friends do?”

Well, yes.

“Great!” she exclaimed, “And even if you didn’t want my help, too bad. I already scared all of the measly attendants. You’re stuck with me.”

There were certainly worse fates in life.

“So, when can I get out of here?” you asked.

“The doctor’s getting your discharge paperwork now! We can leave as soon as you’ve signed it.”

Discharging yourself from the medbay and into Zafra’s care was surprisingly easy. Given the steely backbone of Doctor Khar, you were almost certain that he would not have let you go right away. And Zafra alone didn’t have the authority to bully him into doing so. One of the powers that be had decided that your time in the medbay was up.

Strange.

Zafra helped you dress into some leisure clothes and get into your wheelchair. You had barely registered the doctor’s instructions of what to do when you got back to your quarters, but it didn’t seem to matter. Zafra Ren seemed to know all about how to care for you, and she assured the doctor that she wouldn’t allow you to go outside too much or skip your medications and yada yada yada.

You supposed that under normal circumstances, you would be incredibly embarrassed to be pushed in a wheelchair—by a Knight of Ren no less. You always swore to yourself that if you were ever wheelchair bound, you’d push yourself no matter how long it took. But honestly, you were too tired to care about the sight that you and Zafra made…and why the First Order didn’t seem to have a proper motorized wheelchair for you to use. Oh well.

Once you had made it back to your quarters (waving off Zafra’s attempts to help you up as you assured her that you could most certainly _walk_ to your bedroom), you and Zafra collapsed onto your bed, staring at the ceiling. All you wanted to do was sleep for the next eternity. The walk to the bedroom had been quite painful. Although your legs weren’t damaged in any way, the pain in your side had been excruciating. And your arm. Everything just hurt and the only thing you wanted to do was curl up into the fetal position and feel sorry for yourself.

But you figured that was exactly why Zafra Ren was here. To prevent you from hermitting. Ugh. 

“Today we can stay in and watch a few movies or something,” Zafra said, “But tomorrow, you have your physical therapy appointment. It’s my job to make sure that you keep it. And then we are going to take a stroll around the ship.”

Ugh no. This was already turning out to be more than you could handle. You turned onto your uninjured side, facing away from Zafra.

“Don’t you have better things to be doing?” you grumped. It was bad enough you would be stuck without working for at least six weeks, and now somebody was bearing witness to your pathetic state. “Who put a Knight of Ren on babysitting duty?”

Instead of getting offended and leaving, like you hoped she would, Zafra just rolled her eyes.

“Oh you are so ridiculous sometimes, Commander. I _volunteered_ for this job. I know how incredibly stubborn you can be, and so someone needs to keep an eye on your sorry butt until you can be trusted to at least feed yourself.”

A low bar—but a bar has been set and you weren’t sure that you were going to meet it.

“Now, like I said, we are going to watch a movie, and I’ll let you feel sorry for yourself for the rest of the day. But starting tomorrow, I’m going to kick your ass. So prepare yourself.”

You groaned and pulled the covers over your head. Zafra was acting the part of the concerned friend, and logically, what she was doing was exactly what she should be doing. But that doesn’t mean she wasn’t going to get an earful of your legendary whining.

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Captain Phasma was a formidable woman. She struck fear into the hearts of everyone around her. But more than just fear, she commanded respect from her subordinates and enemies alike. People knew not to underestimate her power and strength. She had worked incredibly hard to get to the position she held currently. Despite the First Order’s beliefs on gender equality, there were still those within the organization who believed that women were inferior, especially as warriors. While it was getting much better under Kylo Ren’s leadership, these attitudes still existed. Especially from people like Allegiant General Pryde who, despite Phasma’s many accomplishments, did not believe the Captain had truly earned her place.

Phasma had learned early on to pick her battles wisely and pick her allies even more wisely. She was generally on good terms with all of the women in senior leadership in the First Order and the _Finalizer_. She was especially good friends with Zafra Ren. The younger woman was a spitfire, something Phasma had been once upon a time. But unlike Zafra, Phasma had had to learn to cull that fiery nature in order to please her superiors and rise to the highly coveted position she now had.

That doesn’t mean that it had been completely beaten out of her. Oh no. Let it not be said that Phasma was one to roll over and take shit from anyone, including her superiors. It was probably why Kylo Ren and General Hux had kept her around for so long, because despite her undying loyalty to the Order, Snoke hadn’t liked her for the mere fact that her individuality shone through on occasion.

In fact, Phasma recognized a bit of her younger self in you.

Phasma had only officially met you in transit to the planet Urmila, but she had heard a lot about you beforehand. She certainly had listened to Hux’s whining about you. And while she felt somewhat bad for her friend at having to deal with a subordinate who took a mile when given an inch, she couldn’t help but be amused. Hux dealt with plenty of obnoxious, annoying individuals, and the fact that you had ascended to the ranks of being someone he regularly complained about (right up there with Kylo Ren) was impressive. After their last bitch session, just after Ren had promoted you, someone with no military training, to the rank of Commander after screwing up a hacking job—well, Phasma knew she just had to meet you. 

She certainly wasn’t disappointed by anything she saw. You hadn’t spent much time together on the ride to Urmila, but the two of you were at the very least able to hold a small conversation. She genuinely enjoyed your matter-of-fact attitude and gratuitous sarcasm. Sure, you let your mouth run to places where it probably shouldn’t and one day your arrogance was going to get the better of you, but Phasma saw no reason for a woman not to brag about herself, particularly if it was deserved.

What did concern Phasma was your relationship with Kylo Ren.

Or rather your _lack of_ a relationship with Kylo Ren.

The Urmila mission stated loud and clear that there was something going on between the two of you…at least on his end. Whether you had noticed or not had yet to be determined (and given Phasma’s general perception of you, you had the EQ of a doorknob, so no, you probably had no clue). Phasma had never seen him get so worked up over a fellow officer. Ever. Perhaps if one of his knights were in danger, she could understand the way he acted. And he certainly would get very concerned over them, but he generally didn’t show it.

Whatever _thing_ Kylo Ren had for you hadn’t been going on for terribly long, but Phasma could tell that he clearly had no idea what to do about it. Kylo Ren was the Supreme Leader. He could not afford to be distracted by something so petty and puerile as a _crush_ —if whatever this was could even be called that.

Phasma, however, wasn’t worried about Kylo. He knew how to deal with his unwanted emotions, or at the very least, he had had ample practice in not letting them affect his work. For goodness sake, the man had killed his own father in cold blood and still managed to keep _functioning_ however low.

No, she was way more worried about you. Whatever this thing was that Kylo had for you could easily backfire on you even if you were none the wiser about it. There were some in the Order who still had the mentality of 15th century earthlings, and if enough people found out about this, it could potentially destroy your career.

Phasma would absolutely hate to see a bright, strong woman with such a promising career fall victim to the emotions of a man.

If that did happen to you, Force forbid Phasma find out about it.

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Kylo Ren was pissed.

Well, he was pissed off on a regular basis. That wasn’t new. No, but this time he was _royally_ pissed off. And he could count on one hand the few times that had happened. The last couple of times that he was this pissed off, he incinerated a few villages with no real reason.

It was best for the entire galaxy if people just stayed out of his way today. And because the Force decided to give him a break, that’s exactly what they did.

Kylo Ren entered the knights’ private training room, tossed his helmet onto the floor carelessly, and locked the door behind him. Nobody would dare to disturb him on a regular basis, but especially not today. The mission to Urmila had been a complete and utter disaster. After you had crumpled from the blaster fire, Kylo and Hux had made swift work of the dignitaries. Hux had pulled out his own blaster and fired on the Mitthian that had shot you while Kylo Ren took out the other two with a mere stroke of his saber. Hux had quickly radioed Phasma’s troops screaming orders at them while Kylo rushed over to you, picked you up, flung you over his shoulder, and ran out of the room with his saber still drawn, Hux not far behind him.

The backup the Mitthian had claimed to have brought was shit. They were no match for Phasma’s troops who had recognized the danger long beforehand and killed off most of them. The few that had managed to escape were easily taken out by Ren’s saber—it was child’s play for him to kill those stupid Mitthian guards even with you passed out over his shoulder. At that moment, Ren’s first priority had been to get you to safety and into the medbay. He loaded you onto the transport ship himself and showed rather uncharacteristic care when placing you down on the stretcher in the ship. Even Hux had looked at him strangely, and the general had long since stopped being even the slightest bit perturbed by the weird things that Ren did.

When the transport had finally docked in the hanger of the _Finalizer_ , Ren had wasted no time in pulling you from the stretcher and carrying you to the medbay, where he began barking orders at the helpless attendants and nurses—demanding that they drop what they were doing and pay attention to _you_. Kylo had never done anything like this before. Never. He had had countless assistants, engineers, diplomats, translators, you name it, get hurt or die on missions with him. But not once had he personally _carried_ one to the medbay and terrorized the staff.

Ren couldn’t even tell you the name of half of the assistants that he brought with him on missions. Maybe he could spout off their ID number, but certainly not their _name_. Not only had he fully committed your ID number to memory, but he knew your name. Even though he never addressed you by it (not even by your surname), he still knew it, and he wasn’t planning on forgetting it any time soon.

Kylo had no idea what was going on. He certainly found you interesting. Definitely amusing. He enjoyed the few times he got under your skin, but he never thought that whatever small amount of…fondness (?)…that he felt for you would get so out of hand. Whatever it was, it was distracting him, clouding his judgement. There was no reason for you to go to Urmila. He tried to convince himself that it was to give you valuable experience so that you could better serve him, but he was kidding himself. He genuinely enjoyed your company. He thought that if he was going to be stuck with boring Hux and even more boring Mitthian delegates, he might as well have you and your ridiculous thoughts there to entertain him.

Whatever this was, it needed to stop now. You were too valuable of an officer to be dealing with his lack of emotional intelligence, and he had far better things to be doing than worrying about you. The First Order had a mole, and he needed to devote his attention to finding this person so that they could be swiftly dealt with.

His lack of a balancing agent, a tether, was starting to get out of hand. He had managed just fine without one all these years, and he could certainly do it again. He just needed to start meditating again. He hadn’t meditated in days and it was screwing up his entire system. And so he sat down to meditate, controlling his breathing until he felt himself transcend the material world.

Everything would be fine if he just kept up with his meditation. If he didn’t let his connection to the Force grow stale.

At least, that’s what he told himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was slightly more serious than the last few, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless! I'm trying to get the plot driving a bit more. Let me know if it's going too fast or too slow. Any comments you have, please do drop them below. I love reading them, and it just makes my day every time someone takes a moment to tell me what they think :D


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ask and you shall receive! This chapter is less "plotty" and a bit more "crack-y" than normal. But I had fun writing it, and I hope you enjoy it!

You were really bored.

_SO FUCKING BORED._

You were halfway through your six-week mandatory leave, and you were going stir crazy. 

This was the second time in your illustrious tenure at the First Order (and really, in the past 6 months), that you had been confined to your quarters. This time should be, theoretically, better than the first, given that you could actually roam around the ship and you weren’t waiting for the proverbial knock on the door, signaling your impending death. And you certainly didn’t have Zafra Ren to keep you company last time.

But unfortunately, you being out of work didn’t mean that the rest of the crew on the _Finalizer_ didn’t have better things to do. So, inevitably, after the first week of babysitting you, Zafra was called back to do whatever it was she did all day. You were pretty amazed that the Supreme Leader had let his favorite, and most badass, Knight hang around in your quarters for that long.

Zafra had been on a mission for the past four days or so, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t page you on your holopad to ~~scream at~~ remind you to go to your physical therapy appointments. And speaking of those, your trainer was a woman by the name of Anja who took absolutely no shit (even from the likes of you), and she was Evil Incarnate. Every time you winced or whined in pain, she just gave you a small smirk.

Pure Evil.

After your physical therapy appointment this morning, you had flopped on your bed, groaning in pain. Anja, despite smiling at your agony, had assured you that you were making progress, and that if you kept up your assigned exercises, you’d be able to return to work in three weeks’ time. You were counting every single day. If you could, you’d take a rock and scratch a countdown tally on the wall. Zafra had rolled her eyes so hard at that and told you to stop being a “fucking drama queen.” You missed Zafra. She hadn’t been gone for terribly long, but if you were back at work, you would have been distracted from her absence. Alas.

Rolling over onto your back, you picked up a holopad to send Zafra a message. Your thumbs hovered over the keys, wondering if now would be the best time to contact her. As much as you were a child inside, you didn’t want to distract your friend from an important mission and risk her getting hurt. Your hesitance lasted for a good minute before you gave up and texted her.

_Come back, I’m bored._

It was a mere ten seconds before you received a reply. Clearly Zafra wasn’t busy enough to ignore you.

**_And deal with your pathetic, whiny ass? No thanks, love, I’m perfectly content with my murdering._ **

You pouted.

_Zafra, I’m hurt._

**_Why, yes you most certainly are. It’s why the doctors and the Supreme Leader have ordered you to stay off your feet._ **

_My feet are fine._

****

**_Well, they won’t be if I catch you missing your physical therapy appointments or doing something generally stupid._ **

_If I can’t walk, how shall I get to my physical therapy appointments then?_

**_Never said you would be able to. If you can’t walk, you’d be tossed off the ship, and then I would no longer have to deal with you. See, problem solved!_ **

_You’re so mean._

**_Awww, thank you!_ **

You rolled your eyes, smiling softly. Zafra was really a good friend, even if she occasionally drove you insane.

_If you kick me off the Finalizer, who will help you steal Millicent?_

**_Millicent? Who’s Millicent?_ **

Oh, oops. You’d forgotten that Zafra hadn’t actually met Hux’s cat yet. Oh this was going to be fun.

_General Hux’s cat._

**_How do you know her name? And you’re having me on. There’s no way her name is Millicent._ **

_This is Hux we are talking about._

**_...True. But still, how do you know?_ **

You grinned wickedly. Eat shit, Zafra. This was her punishment for making you go to physical therapy.

_Well, when I woke up after my surgery, General Hux brought her to keep me company. She’s very sweet._

**_....he what?_ **

****

_Yes! He brought her! She snuggled up against me. I have now been adopted as part of her harem._

**_...I’m sorry...General Hux brought you his CAT?  
  
_ **

_You need a lesson in reading comprehension, Lady Ren._

Zafra was silent for a few moments. Oh, you’d probably pissed her off well and good.

**_HOW IN THE HELL DID YOU GET TO MEET THE FUCKTARD’S CAT WITHOUT ME?! AND WHY WERE YOU KEEPING THIS FROM ME?! HOW DARE YOU!!! >:(_ **

****

Ever since you taught Zafra how to use emojis, she’d been sending them to you constantly, with no context. But this one took the cake. You threw down your holopad and laughed uproariously. You continued to laugh for a few more minutes before it buzzed with another message from Zafra.

**_When I get back, you are getting me past that fucking electronic lock, and we are stealing this cat. I am so pissed at you. If we are unsuccessful, you will wish you had never been born. Mark my words_ ** _._

And mark them you did.

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Alha Ren leaned back in his seat, surveying the rest of his fellow, exhausted Knights of Ren. His fellow brothers-in-crime, Kiro and Taegar, were passed out on top of each other, snoring (Alha rolled his eyes at the picture—those dumbasses could fall asleep in a trash compactor). Savarin was cleaning out his blaster, while Arvind sulked in a corner, staring out at the viewport. Rohini was in the cockpit, acting as co-pilot for Kylo (who was a massive control freak and rarely let anyone else pilot shuttles he was on). And as for Zafra, well she was frantically typing something onto her holopad, oblivious to anyone and anything around her. No doubt she was messaging you.

Ah yes, you, the elusive Commander who had somehow wormed her way into the inner circle of the Knights of Ren. Alha had heard quite a lot about you, mostly from Zafra. Officially, only Savarin and Zafra had met you in person—the other Knights either had no interest in meeting you (cue Arvind and Rohini) or were too busy. While Alha hadn’t formally been introduced to you, he had seen you several times in the hallway near his quarters, his only being a few doors down from yours.

And Alha liked what he saw.

He had heard many a legend about your intelligence, your engineering brilliance, your insufferable attitude, and your shitty brain-to-mouth filter. He had formed a mental picture of you long before he even laid eyes on you, and you did not match his initial expectations.

He hadn’t expected you to be so pretty. Or so _young_.

Judging from your appearance, you couldn’t be much older than thirty. Alha would bet his saber on it. Most people of your rank were at least a good five or six years older before being promoted (Kylo Ren being a notable exception). Clearly your engineering skills were way better than anyone else’s, which for the longest time, Alha had the hardest time believing until about a month and a half ago. Alha’s blaster had stopped functioning, and he couldn’t figure out what was wrong with it. He could repair blasters himself, but this one was beyond his comprehension. Normally, he would send it to some lowly technician to fix, but this time he decided to send it to you (considering you were the personal engineer of the Knights of Ren, it was his right to bug you with whatever he wanted). The blaster not only returned in near-mint condition, but it had been upgraded. To shoot grenades and higher intensity lasers. It was the perfect blaster for an assassin of his caliber.

He hadn’t even seen you in person yet, and Alha had already decided that he was in love with you.

Of course, his slight crush came with a bunch of complications. There was the one complication that he was a Knight of Ren, and while Kylo didn’t care if he adhered to any vows of chastity (how positively medieval), dating an assassin was generally not a good idea.

But perhaps the biggest complication was his Master himself. Kylo seemed...for lack of a better word...attached to you. Alha couldn’t for the life of him figure out what was happening there. If Kylo _really_ wanted someone, he could have them. It’s not like anyone would question it. But Master Ren wasn’t the tyrant that Snoke was. Unlike the former Supreme Leader, Ren at least a modicum of respect for people’s wishes when it came to personal matters. He didn’t tolerate sexual harassment or assault in any form, so it would be uncharacteristic of him to force you to be with him if you didn’t want to be. Sure that rule didn’t necessarily apply to Force tossing stupid people out of the airlock, but hey—baby steps.

And that twisted logic is ultimately what lead Alha to the conclusion that you were a free woman. In all his time with the Knights, Alha hadn’t indulged in any carnal pleasures. Some of his fellow Knights did on occasion (Savarin being the most notorious). Alha wasn’t stupid—he knew he was an incredibly attractive man, but he was generally just _too tired_ to deal with it. But maybe getting coffee or _something_ would be worth breaking his rules. He supposed, though, he’d probably need to introduce himself to you first. That’d generally be considered a decent first step.

Alha rolled his shoulders and settled down into his seat for a nap. If he was going to ask you out, he was going to need to be both mentally and physically prepared for this.

.

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.

.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Zafra, _shut the fuck up!_ ” you hissed as quietly as you could, while poking at the wires of the control panel.

Zafra frowned at your oath. “Who are they?”

You sighed heavily. Now was not the time to be explaining Earth’s deities to Zafra Ren, who would most likely halt this entire operation to ask even more questions.

“It doesn’t matter,” you said, “Just keep watch over the corridor, _please_. If we get caught, we are so screwed. At least I am for sure.”

You had managed to set a time for Operation Rescue Millicent from the Clutches of Darth Huxy, as Zafra dubbed it. You had rolled your eyes at the title for Hux, but you had to admit, it was rather fitting. It had taken you a couple days to plan this operation, with you needing Zafra’s help to piece together the electronic lockpick considering how one of your arms was in a cast. Zafra had also taken the time to memorize Hux’s schedule for the next several days. He was a predictable, regimented man with a reflective schedule. Once a week, at precisely this time, he always unwound in the officer’s bar (usually with Captain Phasma) for a few hours before retiring to his quarters for dinner and bed. If yours and Zafra’s calculations were correct, you only had two hours before the General started to make his way back to his quarters.

You had finished fiddling with the wires and plugging in your electronic lockpick—all one-handed, which was quite an accomplishment if you do say so yourself. You nodded to Zafra.

“Okay, on the count of three, I’m going to release the doors. Be ready.”

Zafra grinned wolfishly. “I’m always ready, Commander.”

“One...two....three.” And with that, you pressed the button on the lockpick and the doors to Hux’s quarters were suddenly forced open. The opening was only very slight, but it was enough for Zafra to go in and pry it open with her bare hands. Grunting, she forced the doors open, allowing the two of you to slip inside. Once inside, you pressed the button on the panel inside Hux’s quarters to close the doors.

“Okay,” you said, whispering, “We’re in. Now to find the cat in this place.”

Hux’s quarters were _massive_. If you thought your quarters were large, his were easily three or four times as large. That bastard. He didn’t deserve anything this large. You worked way harder than he did and your only reward was more work and abuse.

“Oh stop whining,” Zafra said, “We’re here to find the cat. Not to gawk at Hux’s quarters. I will search down here, you take the stairs and look upstairs. And hurry, we have about an hour and half before he gets back.”

You nodded and raced up the stairs (two story quarters! What luxury this daddy’s boy had). You found yourself at the landing of a large hallway, with three doors to your right and an additional two to your left. How in the hell were you supposed to find Millicent in all of this? And what did the general need with so many rooms?! Really it was ridiculous. You decided to pick a room at random and started with the one furthest on the right. Opening the door, you found it to be a standard first-order issued bedroom—likely a guest bedroom. You quickly checked the closet and under the bed, but Millicent was nowhere to be found.

Sighing, you tried the next room, which was a refresher. Unfortunately no Millicent in there. Exiting the refresher, you leaned over the railing and whisper-called down to Zafra.

“Zafra! Any luck?” You asked.

“No! Keep looking!” She said.

You took one last look around the hallway, and noticed that the door at the opposite end was slightly ajar. You hadn’t noticed that before. Millicent must be in there, you decided, it makes the most sense. There’s no way she would have been able to get into a room with a completely closed door. As stealthily as you could, you approached the room, not wanting to spook the poor cat if she was in there. You figured that this would likely be the General’s bedroom, and you didn’t want to spend more time in there than you had to.

As you got closer to the door, you heard a faint noise. You paused, straining your ears to see if you could discern what it was. It sounded like...scratching? No that wasn’t it. It was deeper, raspier. Hmm, what was it?

Wait.

Oh no.

Oh Seven Hells no.

It was snoring.

And that meant one thing.

The General was home.

_Fuckity fuck fuck on a stick_.

Gingerly, you pushed the door to Hux’s bedroom open very, very slightly to find Millicent sitting on atop of a misshapen lump on the bed. And said misshapen lump had a tuft of ginger hair poking out from underneath the covers.

Yup, Hux was home. Which meant that he hadn’t stuck to his daily routine—or he had just skipped out on his socialization activities for the week and decided to go straight to bed. You certainly couldn’t blame the guy.

But that was beside the point. If he found you and Zafra in here, not only would have an absolute bantha, he’d probably murder you with his bare hands. And Kylo Ren would certainly not defend you, despite how much those two seemed to antagonize each other.

Unfortunately for you, as you stood frozen in place, Zafra decided to bound up the stairs with an uncharacteristic lack of grace. Shit.

“Did you find—mmmphh!” Zafra began, before you hastily clamped a hand over her mouth. Frantically, you held a finger to your lips, and then pointed into the bedroom. Zafra leaned over slightly, mouth still covered by your hand, to peer into the room. Her eyes widened. You were both so fucked. And just because this operation couldn’t go any worse, Millicent had decided to wake up and was staring right at you. 

“Mrrrp?”

Oh no, please Millicent, don’t make any noise. Please oh please oh please...

“Mraaw!”

What was this?? A guard cat? Why in the fuck was she starting to meow her head off!

And again, your luck was just so shit today. Millicent picked herself up from her seat at the edge of the bed and began walking over Hux’s face, licking his head. Dear Lord, she was waking him up. Since when did Hux get such a smart cat? Well, clearly he was a heavy sleeper, so he must need someone to wake him up.

“Ugh...Millie, what’re you doin’?” Hux slurred, raising his hand to pet Millicent’s head. Millicent kept head-butting him, trying to wake him up. “Alright, alright, ‘m gettin’ up.”

Aaannnddd...that was your cue to leave. You gestured to Zafra, and the two of you starting scurrying away as quietly as you could.

But once again.

Unfortunately for you.

Millicent had many toys, and in the dark, Zafra had accidentally kicked one, sending it flying down the hallway, making a loud racket.

Fuck.

“What in the galaxy was that?”

And the General was now fully awake.

Great.

You and Zafra took one panicked look at each other before scrambling down the stairs. In your heightened-adrenaline state, you had forgotten to keep quiet and so now your loud, thumping footsteps were echoing throughout the General’s quarters as you rushed to get to the exit.

“What in the hell is that? Who’s there?” Hux shouted. You could hear him turn on the light in his room and his approaching footsteps.

You and Zafra had managed to make it down the stairs and were now racing towards the exit. You were, sadly, not fully healed yet, and the pain in your side exploded as you ran. Thankfully, the distance was short, and soon, the two of you had bolted out of the General’s quarters and were now racing down the hall towards yours.

The moment the two of you had entered your quarters, you immediately locked the door, and collapsed onto the floor, panting, your side screaming. Zafra wasn’t fairing much better, but having had considerably more physical training, she was at least able to stand upright while recovering from the sudden adrenaline.

“Holy---fucking----shit,” Zafra panted, “That—was so close.”

“Yeah,” was all you could muster before you starting coughing from the exertion. Zafra had managed to get her breathing under control and was now staring at you.

“So, we failed,” she pouted, “How unfair of you to have met the cat before me. I demand recompense!”

Wha—what? You two had managed to escape being blown up by General Hux and Zafra was still worried about the darn _cat_?

But frankly, if you were in her place, you’d be doing the exact same thing. Millicent was cute as hell.

You both needed a reconfiguration of your priorities.

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.

Kylo Ren had no idea how he ended up in the wing with the officers’ quarters. He really didn’t. As Supreme Leader, he had an entire wing all to himself—housing not only his quarters but his personal meditation rooms (that his Knights did not have access to), offices, conference rooms, you name it. If he wanted his own private garden, he could have it built without an issue. But that wasn’t the point.

Point was that he had no reason to be in the officers’ wing. He had no reason to be near it. But somehow he had been lost in his thoughts, and his feet had carried him over there. He tried not to read too much into that—about why he spent so much time around there ~~(it wasn’t because he was hoping to see you, oh certainly no)~~. But either way, he found himself in this particular wing, and instead of seeing the person he was secretly hoping to see, he found himself face-to-face with a very pissed off General Hux in a...dressing gown.

This was just too weird, even for Kylo Ren, who had seen some downright _weird_ things in his time.

“General,” Kylo stated, “Dare I ask what you are doing.”

Hux turned his weasel-like face towards him.

“Supreme Leader,” he spat, “Someone has broken into my quarters tonight! While I was asleep. This is a massive security breach, and I demand that this be investigated immediately.”  
  


Kylo thanked the stars that he had his mask on. If he had rolled his eyes any harder, they would have ended up in the back of his head.

“That’s very serious, General,” he said, placatingly, “What exactly happened?”

He didn’t know it was possible, but Hux’s face became even more pinched in anger.

“I _heard_ someone in my quarters. When I awoke they ran away. I tried to follow them, but obviously I was not fast enough. But look! I found this outside my quarters,” he said, handing Kylo your electronic lockpick (the one that you had left behind, oops), “clearly whoever it was, used it to get inside! It has to be the mole, whoever it is. They were probably trying to get more information on our plans!”  
  


Kylo took the lockpick from your hands, turning it over and inspecting it. Although he didn’t know what exactly it was, he had a pretty good feeling of whose handiwork it was. He had scrutinized enough of your creations to know that you had a unique style to designing your machines—he wasn’t even sure if you noticed it yourself. Clearly you had something to do with this. Why would you break into Hux’s quarters, especially while you weren’t well and on medical leave for your injuries? That didn’t make any sense. But if Kylo couldn’t ask you directly about it, he had a feeling he knew who he could speak to.

“I see,” Kylo replied to Hux, “I will turn this over to security. They will figure out who this was and ensure that it does not happen again. You may go back to sleep, General Hux.”

Hux looked surprised at Kylo’s unexpected pleasantness and willingness to help him.

“Oh, thank you Supreme Leader,” Hux said, confused.

“Good night, General.” And with that Kylo turned on his heel and walked in the opposite direction towards his own quarters. While he was in route, he reached out into the Force, searching for the specific signature of the person he wanted to speak to.

_“Zafra,”_ he called.

_“Sir.”_

_“Zafra, what did you do?”_ Kylo asked.

_“What do you mean, sir? I am here with the Commander, we are just having a quiet evening.”_

Kylo rolled his eyes again.

_“I ran into General Hux out in the hallway. I found this electronic device outside his quarters. I assume the Commander made it. I ask again, what did you do? Do not lie to me, I have not the patience for it.”_

He could feel Zafra’s hesitance, but eventually her loyalty to her Master won out.

_“Um, we, well...tried to steal Hux’s cat, sir.”_

Well, that was new.

_“And why would you want to do such a thing?”_

_“She’s cute,”_ Zafra responded, _“We only wanted to hang out with her...or rather, it was my idea. I sort of conscripted the Commander into helping me. It wasn’t her fault. We were just really bored.”_

Kylo huffed a laugh at that. Really yours and Zafra’s antics were getting to be a bit much. The two of you needed to tone it down.

_“So, I’m assuming you convinced the Commander to make this device to...what? Force the lock open?”_

_“Yeah.”_

By this point Kylo was in his quarters. He took his mask off and began to chuckle. This entire situation was just ridiculous. He knew he ought to discipline the two of you, especially you who had not yet figured out how to curtail your stupidity. But even he had to admit this entire thing was so humorous.

And the look on General Hux’s face was just priceless.

So Kylo sat on his couch and laughed. And laughed, and laughed. It had been such a long time since he had truly laughed. Really, there wasn’t much to even smile, forget laugh, about on the _Finalizer_ or in the First Order in general. Ever since he had been betrayed by Luke Skywalker and had joined Snoke, Kylo’s life had been nothing but, well, misery. He had spent so much of his time trying (and in Snoke’s eyes, failing) to be the heir of Darth Vader that he had forgotten that other passionate emotions than anger existed. He was angry all the time—it was a constant feeling that he could never escape. So being able to laugh was just—a relief. A huge relief. For a few moments, he felt as if he didn’t have a care in the world, as if he were just a normal person who wasn’t the Supreme Leader of the most powerful and feared organization in the galaxy.

When his laughter died down into small chuckles, Kylo took another opportunity to study the electronic lockpick you had cobbled together. How you managed to make something so complicated, so intricate, with one functional arm was quite remarkable. Apart from being brilliant and talented, you were also incredibly resourceful and resilient. You were too stubborn to let something as trivial as _blaster fire_ be the end of you. So, really, Kylo was far from being angry with you about what you did.

He was proud of you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do hope you all enjoyed that! Thank you all for bearing with me. Things are a bit crazy, crazy over here with the mess that is COVID-19. A lot of things are up in the air, and the situation is getting more serious. I am finishing up my final exams, and once they're done, I'll be heading into quarantine for the next semester with my equally derpy roommate. Honestly, it's going to be a time. 
> 
> I hope you all are staying safe and healthy. Please remember to follow the CDC guidelines to protect yourself and your loved ones. Make sure to wash your hands and avoid unnecessary gatherings and travel. As always, please feel free to let me know what you've thought of this chapter. Comments will be the balm to my stir-crazy, quarantined soul!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How have we hit 10 chapters already? Wow! And you guys are still here! Amazing. Thank you all for your gracious support of this fic. I'm having a lot of fun writing this. 
> 
> Also, I was slightly tipsy on Bollywood movies and wine when I wrote this, so please take it with a grain of salt--as you should be taking this fic.

Today was the day.

The day.

Your last physical therapy appointment of your quarantine (you still had more. What, did you think you were about to get off the hook that easily?). If you cleared this appointment, then you would be able to go to work the next day. Of course, you weren’t allowed to do anything very strenuous, but it would get you out of your godforsaken quarters.

You loved your quarters, but seriously, you were about to go completely bonkers if you stayed in there for a minute longer. And Zafra Ren could only do so much to entertain you. After the failure of Operation Rescue Millicent from the Clutches of Darth Huxy, said Darth Huxy had been on high alert looking for the culprits that had broken into his quarters. So the two of you needed to lay low. Neither you nor Zafra had figured out by this point that the Supreme Leader was totally covering your asses because he found the whole thing funny.

If you ever did find this out, you would not only be extremely embarrassed, you’d also wonder who killed your boss and replaced him with a decoy, Invasion-of-the-Body-Snatchers style.

But to be completely fair, after you emerged from your house arrest, you’d wonder exactly what had gotten into Kylo Ren. But you weren’t to know that quite yet.

You still had one more day left before you could go to work. So you shuffled on over to your physical therapy appointment to meet your trainer, Anja, who looked a lot less wicked than normal.

“Ah good morning, Commander!” Anja said, motioning for you to sit in the chair, “I think since you’re heading back to work tomorrow, I’ll take it a bit easier on you today.”

Well, unfortunately for you, Anja _sat on a throne of LIES_. Her idea of “taking it easy” was letting you go at the forty-five minute mark rather than after a full hour. The intensity of the exercises she made you do (including lifting weights, and pushups—this woman was pure evil) did not change whatsoever. And so after your appointment, you found yourself stumbling back to your quarters to find Zafra Ren napping on your couch, as she usually did (by this point, you’d given Zafra the code to your quarters, so she just came and went as she pleased).

Instead of collapsing into the bed, like a sane and normal human being, you decided you were just going to take a nap on the floor. And so that’s what you did. You and Zafra napped for what seemed like days, but in reality was only about two hours or so. Your shoulder was aching even more by the time she shook you awake, a disapproving look on her face.

“If you were really that tired, you should have at least slept in a _chair_. Now your shoulder is going to hurt even more, and you have nobody but yourself to blame for that one, genius.”

You groaned. During your entire six week confinement period, Zafra had not once let you wallow in your self-pity. She kicked your ass every day, giving you some encouragement, but more often than not, delivering snarky truths that you didn’t want to hear but needed nonetheless.

“Ok, you dumbass,” Zafra said, “Get up, and let’s go get dinner. We’re going to socialize.”

_What?!_

Since when did Zafra Ren want to socialize.

“Despite what it may seem, looking after your sorry butt for six weeks isn’t exactly my idea of a good time. And as introverted as I may be, I still need the company of different people. And so do you. So get up,” she said, poking your (uninjured) side until you finally gave up.

“Alright, alright,” you mumbled, standing up, “But why do you want to eat cafeteria food?”

“I didn’t say we were going to the cafeteria,” Zafra said. You raised your eyebrows. Where else could you possibly go? Sure, there were a few restaurants on the _Finalizer_ but both of you had tried them and decided that they weren’t worth a second shot.

“We’re going to the exclusive command officers’ dining room.”

Holy shit. You’d heard of that dining hall before—apparently it was some fancy-ass place. The food was supposed to be absolutely impeccable. And beyond expensive.

“Don’t you need some kind of invitation or something to go there?” you asked, “I certainly didn’t receive one.”

Zafra rolled her eyes.

“Sure, if you’re below the rank of Commander.”

Oh.

“Wait, other than financial reasons, why exactly haven’t we gone there before?” you asked, puzzled. Zafra gave a wolfish grin. Oh no, this couldn’t be good.

“Because,” she said, “There’s a very strict dress code. You have to dress up.”

“That’s not hard, I can just wear my dress uniform.”

Zafra let out a groan of exasperation.

“Really, my friend, you are _so stupid_ sometimes. No, this actually requires you to wear _regular civilian dress clothing_.”

Oh shit.

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“Seriously, Zafra why are you making me do this?” you groaned, as she helped you zip up the only dress that you owned. It was a black (no surprises there), sleeveless, floor-length gown with a deep, but modest v-neck. It had some lacework under the arms meant to accentuate your waist. The last time this thing had seen the light of day was during the formal dean’s reception after you had defended your PhD. You refused to think about how long ago that was. The fact that it still fit you was a miracle in and of itself.

“Because you deserve it,” Zafra said, “You’ve spent most of your career trying to be taken seriously in a man’s world. You can still be a brilliant, badass, high ranking officer of the First Order and dress femininely on occasion. Those things are certainly not mutually exclusive. Come on, doesn’t a small part of you _want_ to get dressed up?”

You weren’t really sure what to think of that. You’d been in a uniform for so many years now that it had just become a part of you. You didn’t even think about wearing other clothes than the standard First Order-issued garb. It was a little depressing, if you thought about it. But at the same time, you knew that dressing up would cause people to _pay attention_ to you.

Zafra chuckled. “That’s the point of this evening’s exercise. You’re a beautiful and smart woman, who is a formidable addition to the First Order. You’re going to walk into that dining room and show all those grumpy, stuffy men exactly why you are so far out of their league and how they _can’t have you_.”

You gulped. That sort of a message could easily be taken the wrong way and land you in hot water.

“Isn’t that, oh I don’t know, leading them on?” you asked.

Zafra rolled her eyes.

“Why _of course_!” she exclaimed, “Men have been toying with and harassing women for centuries. Especially men like these. I for one am more than excited to exploit their petty and puerile weaknesses for my own amusement. I want to bring them to their knees and have them bow to my power. Won’t you join me?”

Of course you would. Honestly, at this point, if Zafra Ren told you to jump, you’d ask her how high.

“You need some jewelry,” Zafra stated, “Do you have any?”

“Uh, I think I have a set of fake pearls...stashed....somewhere.”

Zafra sighed. “That simply won’t do, just a moment.” She rummaged through the bag she brought, emerging with a small jewelry box. In it was a gorgeous ruby necklace and earring set. The necklace was a simple silver chain with a teardrop-shaped ruby pendant set in silver. The earrings were ruby studs set in the same design as the pendant. You stared. That set must cost a fortune. Where would Zafra get something like this?

“This belonged to my mother, and her mother before her,” Zafra said quietly, “It contains the official gemstone of my home planet. Very hard to come by these days.”

You balked. “Zafra, I can’t wear this—this is too precious.”

“You’re right, it is very precious,” Zafra replied, “So see to it that you take excellent care of it. I will not take no for an answer.”

You nodded and took the set from Zafra, moving to put on the beautiful pieces. As you did, Zafra took a moment to fix her own outfit. She was wearing a traditional garment of her home planet. She had on a dark grey, cropped blouse and petticoat. Next there was an ornately embroidered, long, dark grey cloth that wrapped around the petticoat and over her stomach. The excess was then draped across her shoulder. Zafra, frankly, looked like a goddess. You were almost certain that you looked like some kind of backwater, country bumpkin compared to her.

Zafra rolled her eyes at that, but didn’t say anything.

“Zafra,” you asked, having secured the jewelry in place, “Is there some kind of occasion? Is that why we are going to the command officers’ dining room?”

“There are some ambassadors from various First Order planets that have just arrived on the _Finalizer_. The Supreme Leader and General Hux will be required to entertain them. They will be around, but we do not need to interact with them. Other than that, there is no special function that I am aware of. Savarin Ren and I thought it might be fun to celebrate the success of several of our most recent missions. So we’ve invited the Knights and Captain Phasma to dine with us.”

You nodded. “How many of us will be there?”  
  


“Aside from the two of us, Savarin, Alha, and Arvind will be joining us. Rohini never comes to any of our social events, and Taegar and Kiro hate the dining room. Captain Phasma will thankfully be attending. She is quite a riot, especially when you’ve gotten some alcohol into her. It will be fun!”

You smiled. You hadn’t had many chances to interact with the intimidating, chrome trooper, but you really did like her, and looked forward to getting to know her a bit more. Hers and Zafra’s presence would help to diffuse what would likely be a heavily testosterone-fueled room. This whole situation reminded you of the stupid donor receptions that the universities back on Earth would throw to ingratiate themselves to the people who supposedly allowed “for the continuation of research and furtherance of the human race” with their measly ten-thousand dollars—you were lucky if that bought you gloves for the lab for a year. You and your advisor would attend these meetings, and you would watch her get very drunk and mouth-off to the stupid assholes. After seeing that amazing display, it was your greatest wish to be like her in social situations.

Perhaps now was your time to practice. Straightening your dress, you turned to Zafra and grinned.

“Let’s go!”

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If there was one thing Kylo Ren hated more than dealing with delegations for potential First Order planets, it was dealing with delegations for current First Order planets. It apparently wasn’t enough for these whiny people to have the protection, stability, and _order_ provided by the First Order. No, they needed to be constantly reminded of exactly how important they are and how their planet is vital to First Order functions and blah blah blah.

Today, General Hux thought it would be prudent to entertain a few ambassadors from the current First Order planets in this sector. They were supposed to be aboard the _Finalizer_ for routine business, so Hux and Allegiant General Pryde thought it would be a good gesture to have dinner with them in the formal dining room before they left. Of course, Kylo was hoping that this didn’t have to include him, but Pryde was insistent that he attend. While Kylo didn’t like Pryde any more than he liked anyone else in the High Command, Pryde had served the Emperor and knew a great deal more about running an organization like the First Order than even Kylo did. So in this respect, Kylo deferred to his suggestion.

One benefit of being the Supreme Leader meant that he could do and dress as he pleased and nobody would be in a position to question him. So while Hux and Pryde had to wear dress clothes to the formal dining room, Kylo could wear whatever the hell he wanted. So he opted for dressing in his usual black tunic, pants, cape, and his helmet. He knew that Pryde would turn up his nose at him, but Ren did not give a flying fuck.

Ren strode into the hall a good twenty minutes past when the dinner was officially supposed to start. It never looked good for him to show up on time to these things. It made it seem as though he had plenty of time on his hands and that people would be free to waste it. The dining room was more crowded than normal. While Ren, Hux, Pryde, and the dignitaries had a private dinner, it looked as though several of the High Command officers had decided to take advantage of the lull in the activity and book a table.

What Ren was not expecting to see was a few of his Knights, Captain Phasma, and _you_ all dressed up and sitting at a table of your own. You were incredibly distracting—Ren had never seen you dressed up before and you looked...well...incredibly gorgeous. It was all he could do not to stop and stare at you. Kylo had always known that you were an attractive woman (and in the dead of night, he would admit to himself exactly how attractive he found you), but the bulk of his interest in you came from your cleverness and intelligence. He had met several smart women in his time, but very few of them had the guts to backtalk him and _make him laugh_ without even trying.

But now, seeing you out of your boring, unflattering uniform and in an actual, proper, formal gown—Ren definitely couldn’t deny your beauty anymore. His attraction to you was definitely inappropriate, but frankly, anyone who didn’t find you beautiful was blind. And Ren certainly wasn’t blind.

Sadly for him, he couldn’t just procure his own table and ~~creepily~~ subtly stare at you from across the room. The Force wasn’t quite that kind to him, and he now had to spend his evening, for lack of a better word, _schmoozing_ with planetary heads of state. Ren gave a sigh as he walked towards the table with his guests. He would much rather be back in his quarters with a book and a glass of Corellian whiskey. Maybe if he played his cards right, this evening would be over quickly and he could still do just that.

But sadly, the Force wasn’t quite that kind to him.

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Kylo Ren wore a mask for many reasons.

The biggest reason was that he did not want people, other than those close to him, to see his face. He knew that he looked young (he was), and that he wouldn’t be taken seriously. But also for security purposes. The fewer people that knew who he was and what he looked like, the better.

The next biggest reason was because it intimidated people. People were more likely to think twice about approaching him, especially when faced with a dark, scary hunk of metal and couldn’t gauge his reaction to anything they were saying. It offset his young looks by making him seem older and giving credence to his reputed power and authority.

However, one unintended benefit of this mask (that now became the primary reason, if he was being truly honest with himself) was that he could roll his eyes, make faces, and most importantly, fall asleep without anyone noticing.

Not that he was actually asleep. He wasn’t stupid enough to let his guard down that much in front of other people. He had mastered the art of falling asleep with his eyes open. The Terrans on the ship called it “zoning out” if he remembered correctly.

While the Allegiant General was a man of few words, General Hux was not. And he had been going on for the past ten minutes about the virtues of the First Order and how the dignitaries were truly wise for remaining as part of the Order. The dignitaries, unsurprisingly, were lapping up Hux’s words. Hux was many things (Kylo had unfortunately taken to the bad habit of calling him a fuckboi in his head—thanks to you and Zafra), but one thing he was, was a fantastic orator and public speaker. He had the ability to charm just about anyone, which was one of the reasons that Kylo kept him around. Hux had the very uncanny skill of smoothing over a tense situation without breaking a sweat.

Kylo hated to admit it, but he admired Hux for that. If anyone could convince planets to join and remain part of the First Order, it was Hux. Both Ren and Pryde were absolutely useless in this respect. If Hux’s methods for some reason didn’t work, that’s when Kylo came in and some heads were sliced off.

While Hux and the delegates were blabbering, Ren turned his attention toward your table where he saw you smiling and chatting with your friends. If there’s one thing Ren knew about you (and frankly, anyone who met you knew this) it’s that you were socially awkward as fuck. He had been studying you on and off all night. At first, you had looked completely uncomfortable and very out of place. Obviously, Zafra had forced you out here. But as the evening went on (and thanks to the glass or two of wine you had), you’d loosened up a bit and were now actively listening to the conversation, occasionally contributing something.

Ren was glad that at least you had friends. Those were something he could never quite manage, and now that he was Supreme Leader, having friends was out of the question. He had allies. Maybe acquaintances, but certainly not friends.

Kylo was about to continue his observations of you when Hux called him, signaling that he actually had to pay attention this time. He internally groaned before addressing the group, and then proceeded to engage in the most mind-melting conversation he had ever had the misfortune of participating in. Kylo was certain that he was going to lose all of his brain cells thanks to this dinner.

  
If you were here, sitting at his table, not only would you be having a very intellectually stimulating conversation, Kylo would be able to look at you without seeming like a complete weirdo.

Kylo was about to respond to Hux’s query when he felt a sense of unease ripple through the Force. And not just any unease, but yours in particular. Ignoring the rest of the party, Kylo tilted his head in your direction, trying to see if he could make out what was going on. And he was not very pleased with what he saw. Alha Ren had moved from his end of the table to sit next to you, and was very clearly leaning in your personal space. Your face gave away nothing about how you felt about the situation, but Kylo was an expert in reading body language. You were not happy.

“Supreme Leader?” Hux called, and Kylo snapped his attention back to him. “Pardon me, but I was just telling Algarean minister here about the latest shipment of troopers from his planet.”

Kylo wanted to strangle Hux. He was in no mood for this.

“Yes. They have been a fine addition to the First Order,” he replied, curtly before returning his attention to you. It appeared that Alha had not gotten the hint and, if possible, was leaning _even closer_ in your personal space. Ren gripped his fork so tightly, it started to deform.

“As the Supreme Leader was saying,” Hux prattled on, “The Algarean troopers have been a fine addition to the Order’s forces. Clearly the natural strength and agility that the people of your planet possess has---”

Ren had stopped paying attention to whatever Hux was saying because now Alha was _really_ about to enter some deep shit. If he didn’t stop soon Kylo would—

—And the moron then proceeded to rest his hand on your shoulder, slowly ghosting it down your arm. You had now gone from maybe slightly perturbed to alarmed.

That’s it, Ren was going to murder this stupid son-of-a-bantha dead. Abruptly, he stood up from his chair, causing multiple people to swivel their heads in his direction, but Ren couldn’t give a shit about the scene he was about to make.

“Excuse me, Generals, Ministers,” he mumbled before storming off in the direction of your table. Alha, the oblivious, King of the Morons had not noticed Kylo’s steaming anger, even through the Force. As Ren approached the table, he could hear Alha’s stupid attempts at seduction.

“I really think it would be fun,” Alha Ren said, “Promise me you’ll at least give it a thought? I think that—hey!” With that, Kylo yanked Alha’s hand off of your arm, and proceeded to twist it behind his back.

“Master!” Alha exclaimed.

“Alha Ren,” Kylo boomed, “Would you care to explain to me what exactly _you think you are doing?_ ”

“I—I was just asking the Commander for a few drinks...I didn’t think there was any harm, sir!”

Kylo rolled his eyes, grateful Alha could not see his face.

“And I suppose it escaped your notice that she is _not interested_?”

Alha hissed in pain.

“I—I thought...”

“You thought, _what_? That she might _change her mind_? That she could be persuaded to give into your affections? Have I taught you nothing during your time here? You are a Knight of Ren, and you will conduct yourself as such. If you want female company, there are plenty of other women aboard this ship who would like nothing more than to _have a drink_ with you. Do not act so desperate, it’s pathetic.”

Kylo released Alha’s arm, watching as Alha tried to massage the soreness out of it.

“Leave,” Kylo ordered.

“Master, I—”

“I said, _leave_ ,” Kylo hissed, “Your behavior has not only embarrassed your colleagues and fellow Knights, it has also embarrassed me. Go back to your quarters, I will speak with you shortly.”

Alha bowed to his master and scurried out of the room, trying his best to avoid the stares as this scene had now garnered the attention of everyone in the dining room. Kylo turned his attention to you who looked shocked and rather mortified. Kylo didn’t blame you, and silently cursed himself for letting his anger get the better of him. You were probably incredibly ashamed, and would likely want nothing to do with him.

Kylo sighed, and addressed you softly. “I am sorry for disturbing your evening, Commander. But that kind of behavior will not be tolerated, especially from one of my Knights. Please inform your waiter that I will be taking care of your bill this evening. Enjoy the rest of your meal.”

You gave Ren a small ‘thanks’ and he strode back over to his table and plopped himself back in his chair, silently laughing at the slack-jawed faces of the dignitaries and the mildly horrified look on General Hux’s face.

“My apologies, General,” Ren said, “Please, continue.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed that one! While I truly believe that Kylo Ren can be a very jealous man, I seem to have a hard time writing him that way (LOL). I hope I did it justice! In case you were confused or curious, Zafra is wearing a sari. :) 
> 
> I hope all of you are doing well throughout this pandemic. Please be sure to take care of yourselves and your loved ones. We're all in this together, so please make sure to practice social distancing and don't take any unnecessary risks. Also please wash your hands!
> 
> As always, please let me know what you think! This crazy chemist is quarantined and is totally looking for company outside of my home haha.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof it's been a while. This isn't as long as some of my other chapters, sorry about that! I promise next one will be longer.

You groaned as the alarm on your holopad beeped, signaling that it was time for you to get up and get ready for work. This was the day you had been dreaming of for the past six weeks, but you couldn’t help but dread what lay ahead of you.

You had absolutely _zero fucking clue_ what kind of ‘shrooms Kylo Ren had been on last night, but all you knew was that the man was even more volatile than you had originally thought. After kicking out Alha Ren for flirting with you (the fact that he even noticed Alha doing this, let alone put a very public stop to it, was remarkable in and of itself), you and the rest of your table had finished up your dinner in relative silence. You had sat there with your face red for the rest of the evening, and it wasn’t helped by Zafra Ren’s badly concealed sniggering.

When the two of you had stumbled back to your quarters after dinner, Zafra had wasted no time in laughing her ass off the entire time.

“I _fucking knew it_!” she had exclaimed (Zafra rarely dropped f-bombs, so this was clearly a momentous occasion for her to resort to such unsophisticated language), “I just _fucking knew it_! You my friend, have caught the attention of the one and only Supreme Leader!”

Well you had known that for months. He _had_ promoted you after your very unadvised, illegal, poorly executed hacking job. Clearly your prowess as an engineer had caught his attention. You just hadn’t expected his interest to take a turn for the...uh...personal.

Okay, you may be the galaxy’s most oblivious bitch, but you weren’t stupid nor were you naïve. You could recognize interest when you saw it, having garnered plenty of it in your life. Most men were just too intimidated to approach you, which suited you just fine. You found them all tedious, stupid, and boring to deal with anyway. Instead of trying to “spare their feelings” and “let them down gently,” you just pretended never to notice. It had served you very well over the years.

But this.

Oh this.

This was basically a bright, neon sign screaming at you that Kylo Ren wanted to “bang the shit out of you” as Zafra Ren had so eloquently put it.

Well.

You weren’t quite sure what to do with that information. You weren’t dumb enough to shit where you ate, and considering you basically never left work while on the _Finalizer_ , it wouldn’t be hard for someone to guess how many relationships you had had whilst being stationed here. Yup. Zilch. And the few relationships you had back on Earth were pretty short-lived, mostly because the other party couldn’t stand you. Truth be told, you were quite an asshole. But then again, so was Kylo Ren. So maybe the two of you would actually work together. A veritable match made in hell.

You shook your head. It really didn’t matter how fucking attractive Kylo Ren was (and after that little possessive stunt he pulled last night—well—let’s just say you had some _very_ nice dreams), dating your boss was a terrible idea. Your mom had done that and had ended up with you (go figure). She then spent the rest of her life complaining about that “no good, muscle-headed moron!” (that’s your dad). But as the saying goes, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. You shuddered to think about following in your mother’s footsteps and making the same bad decisions that she did.

Getting up and throwing yourself in the refresher, you started to dread the day you had ahead of you. While you were excited to get out of your quarters and be useful again, you weren’t exactly enthused about being the center of attention. No doubt the rumor mill had churned out some good ones, and that was undoubtedly helped by the fact that, after his little display, Ren had finished dinner and had taken his stabby-stab and sliced open yet another array of control panels (no shame, you had now nicknamed that laser pointer of his, Stabitha). The technicians had fixed what they could, but your presence was now required to deal with the rest.

Joy.

Once you had finished getting ready for work, you made your way over to your lab and plopped down on your chair, taking a moment to appreciate finally being back in your little den. Most people dared not enter this place, and that was exactly how you liked it. Picking up your holopad, you saw the flashing notification indicating that you needed to go deal with Stabitha’s Fury. You sighed, getting up out of your comfy chair to pick up the tools you would need. At least the person who prepared the report for you had the decency to take pictures of the scene so you would at least know the specific tools you’d need rather than trying to lug an entire cart of things to fix a few crossed wires (that had happened once and the whole scene was rather embarrassing).

You groaned once you approached the scene of the crime. Kylo Ren had really done a number on this one. Even with the technicians’ once over, you still had at least a few days’ worth of work before you got the panels back in working order. The irony of you cleaning up Ren’s mess, which happened _because of you_ , was not lost on you. But you couldn’t help but be furious. As far as you were concerned, you had done _nothing_ to indicate to Ren that you might be interested in him. While yes, your dark side did appreciate a good show of possessiveness every once in a while, he really had no right to act like that. And now you were stuck once again cleaning up the murder princess’s tantrum. Seriously, Kylo Ren was a grown ass adult and the only way he could deal with his emotions was to take Stabitha and start...stabbing things.

It was pathetic really. You were sick and tired of cleaning up after his bullshit. You had taken this job to work on something that was actually suited to your skills as an engineer, and you felt like you had spent most of your time doing the work of _technicians_ because the First Order relied too heavily on your competency to actually bother training their personnel in how to do their jobs properly.

As much as you would like Kylo Ren to just say to hell with professionalism, throw you onto his bed, and have you six ways from Sunday, you had a bit more self-respect than that. You were too pissed off with him.

It would be best for everyone, especially the Supreme Leader, to stay out of your way.

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Rohini Ren had a really bad feeling that something terrible was going to happen.

She had these feelings often enough that most of her fellow Knights had stopped listening to her whenever she voiced them. However, what most of them always failed to realize is that every time she had these feelings, something bad _did_ happen. Unfortunately, she couldn’t always give specific details of the _what_ and _when_. Most Force sensitives at least had dreams or visions or _something_ to indicate what might happen, but Rohini never had any such premonitions.

Rohini was stronger in the Force that your average, run-of-the-mill Force sensitive. In fact, most people who were Force sensitive never really figured it out. So to make it all the way to the level of Sith training that she had, already placed her in the top half of one percent of Force sensitives. The problem was that, out of all of her fellow Knights, she wasn’t the strongest. In fact, pretty much everyone else was stronger in the Force than she was. She had made it this far by a combination of patience and skill that, frankly, none of the others truly possessed.

Rohini was also younger than Kylo by only about a year, making her the second oldest of the group. This, combined with her lack of sensitivity (when compared to the other Knights of course) made it very difficult for her to relate to the others. And while most of them wouldn’t actively tease her about her diminished sensitivity (they weren’t teenagers, after all), they clearly saw themselves as better than her. Even Zafra, who Rohini liked the most out of the bunch, wasn’t immune to a superiority complex around her.

Point was that Rohini had had to learn how to do things without relying on the Force as much as the others. One of those was that she almost always trusted her instincts—something Kylo had struggled to instill in the rest of his Knights. Rohini could babble on until she was blue in the face about her bad feelings, but all one of the other Knights had to do was say, “Well _I_ don’t feel a disturbance in the Force,” and that would be the end of that conversation.

The only person who would ever truly listen to her and take her seriously was Kylo. But even Kylo had his limits on what he could and could not deal with. While he was a Commander, Kylo had set an open-door policy with his Knights. He had stated that he would rather his Knights come speak (or fight) with him about something rather than have it become an issue later down the line. But once he had taken over the role of Supreme Leader his time had become more limited and more valuable. While theoretically the policy was still in place, Rohini knew better than to bother Kylo with something unless it was serious. Plus, unlike some of the others, Rohini had joined the Knights a lot later in Kylo’s tenure in the First Order, and she just didn’t feel comfortable enough with him. Savarin, Arvind, and Kiro had known him the longest, having also trained under Luke Skywalker. Kylo initially had more of the former padawans join him, but many had not survived Snoke’s training and once they died, a replacement was swiftly found. Over the years, Rohini couldn’t help but feel as though Kylo wished she weren’t his Knight and that the padawan she replaced was still alive.

But that kind of speculation would spell nothing but trouble for her if Ren found out about it. Kylo could not afford to have a distracted Knight. He worked hard to kill his past, and he expected his Knights to do the same. Rohini was here, as a Knight of Ren, and would be until she died. And that was all anyone should ever have to say about that.

None of this changed the fact that Rohini still felt as though something terrible was going to happen. She had felt this way even before the First Order realized that they had a mole and the feeling had only gotten worse.

Rohini was sure that whatever this feeling was, it was related to the mole situation. Kylo had instructed his Knights to start investigations into who that might be. So far, their searches had turned up nothing. Whoever this person was, not only were they high up in the First Order, they knew how to cover their tracks. It was not going to be easy, and Rohini was fairly sure that the only way to catch this person was to rely on her instincts. Not just the Force. But then again, the Force was an inherently instinctual entity (if that was the right word), and being in tune with it required one to be in tune with oneself. It was strange really.

Rohini shook herself back to the present, realizing that she had been outside the long-distance holocommunication room for quite some time. She was waiting to place a call to her sister, who still lived with the rest of her family back on Kaikeyi. And this was yet another reason that Rohini couldn’t relate to the rest of the Knights. The others had no family, or at the very least, had no relationship with their family. Rohini still did, and she kept that fact mostly secret because otherwise Kylo would scold her for it. Communicating in this room allowed her some more privacy than in her quarters as it had the proper equipment for top-secret calls. She could encrypt her communication if she needed to. Very few people had access to this room, and the only people that would use it were General Hux and his leadership team.

She was scheduled to call her sister about five minutes ago. Whoever was in there was taking an eternity, and it was starting to eat into her own time. She was about to go abruptly knock on the door when Arvind Ren suddenly burst out of the room. He stopped and stared hostilely at her for a few moment. Rohini hated Arvind. He was always so cruel to her, in a way he wasn’t with everyone else.

“Rohini,” Arvind said, “What are you doing here?”

Rohini raised an eyebrow.

“I could ask you that same question, Arvind.”

“It’s none of your business, you useless harpy,” Arvind spit, before briskly walking off.

Rohini entered the holocommunications room and leaned against the wall, trying desperately to stop tears from pooling in her eyes. Normally, she had no problem controlling her emotions and writing off Arvind’s insults, but today she was just not in the mood. She was already having a bad week with her uneasy feelings and being plagued by nightmares of her running away from a foe she couldn’t see. She hated that Arvind was the person to send her over the edge, as she let a few tears fall. She quickly wiped them away and took a few deep breaths to school herself.

It wouldn’t do for her little sister to have to worry about her after all. She took one last breath before activating the communicator and dialing.

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Unfortunately for you, the Force hates you.

You were just about to call it a day on these stupid panels, grab some lunch, and fuck back off to your lab when a nervous stormtrooper approached you. You rolled your eyes. Who could possibly need you now? You had just come back to work and you already had to deal with bullshit you didn’t sign up for. And your shoulder hurt like hell.

“Commander, the Supreme Leader requests your presence in Hangar E5.”

That...motherfucker.

What could he possibly want with you now? Seething, you began loudly packing up your tools and shoved the box at the poor trooper.

“Carry these,” you ordered. The trooper looked a little unsure of the command and just stared at you.

“My arm feels like it’s going to fucking fall off, and if you don’t want me to bash your head in, you will _do as I command, soldier_!”

The trooper looked sufficiently scared shitless (seriously, where did the First Order find these wimps? You had no prior military training, and you could probably outlast them in the battlefield), so he took your toolkit and meekly trailed after you, trying his best to keep up as you walked New-Yorker-style over to the hangar bay.

When you entered the bay, you saw that it was empty save for the Supreme Leader and his TIE Silencer. You frowned. Surely the Supreme Leader wasn’t going to ask you to _fix his TIE Silencer_. You weren’t a TIE fighter mechanic, and you had only a working knowledge of how these TIE systems worked. If the Supreme Leader asked you to be his maid and fix his ship, you were definitely going to have to decline this one.

“Leave us,” the Supreme Leader ordered and the trooper that escorted you left the room. Once he left, Ren immediately took off his helmet and stared at you. It was funny, really. He was absolutely the _last_ person you wanted to see today (or ever), and starting at his stupidly handsome face was making it very hard to stay mad at him. But mind over matter. You had made the commitment to stay angry and you were going to keep it, goddammit.

The Supreme Leader raised an eyebrow at you.

“Am I keeping you from something, Commander?”

Oh shit. Come on brain, remember who you’re talking to—or thinking at, rather.

“Um, no, sir,” you replied, “I was just fixing the control panels that were, uh, _damaged_ last night, sir.”

Kylo Ren gave a very imperceptible smirk, but it was there.

“I see,” he said, “I trust you aren’t finding the repair too difficult and that the work will be accomplished rather swiftly?”

That... _motherfu_ —no brain, remember, you and Stabitha are still not friends yet.

“I’ve done the hard part,” you replied, “The technicians can take care of the rest.”

Kylo nodded. “Good, then you will have plenty of time for the assignment I’m about to give you.”

Oh dear.

Kylo gestured towards his ship. “I want some weapons upgrades to my ship. I’ve sent my exact specifications to your holopad, so I won’t waste your time telling you about those details. Be creative. They aren’t very specific.”

Of course not. That would just be too damn easy, now wouldn’t it?

“I also am in need of a new droid, one that can accompany me on my missions and make real-time repairs to the ship. The one I currently have is too slow.”

That _fucker_. The droid he has is the latest model! It’s the fastest repair droid one can get.

Kylo smirked.

“I want a faster one,” he said, “So build it.”

You sighed internally. Well, at least this was better than cleaning up after HRH’s tantrums.

Kylo thankfully ignored that, and opened the door to the cockpit of his ship. He climbed inside and then looked down at you, gesturing for you to follow him.

“Come inside, let me show you the current weapons system.”

You frowned.

“There isn’t a whole lot of room, sir,” you said. How in the hell did he think he was going to fit two fully grown adults in there.

Kylo rolled his eyes. “Well I guess it will be a bit of a tight squeeze, now won’t it? Hurry up, Commander, I do not have all day.”

You gulped, but climbed in after him. It was a _very_ tight squeeze and you tried to stay as close to the entrance and as far away from the front as humanly possible. Eventually Kylo huffed.

“This isn’t working. Here, just _sit in front of me_ so that I can show you, and we can get this over with.”

Oh...mother of god. He was actually...actually asking you to all but _sit in his lap_. This was...

This was not going to end well. You steadied yourself and made your way over to take a seat in front of the Supreme Leader of the First Order, with your back pressed flush up against his very strong, very muscular chest. His thighs were practically encasing yours, and you could feel every breath he took trickling down your neck.

This was not good. You were supposed to be _mad at him_ , not—better hold that thought, brain.

Kylo began to rattle off the specifications of his current weapons systems, but honestly, you couldn’t be assed to care right now. All you could focus on was the heat radiating off of him. Good Lord this man was warm. If he didn’t stop soon, you were going to start sweating. And Kylo didn’t seem to notice (or care about) your discomfort one bit. At some point, he had asked you to turn on the ship’s computer, which caused you to panic for a moment as you hadn’t been paying attention. You made to hit some button hoping that that would work, but instead of yelling at you for getting it wrong, Kylo _picked up your hand_ and placed it carefully on the button to turn on the ship.

And his hand lingered on yours for a lot longer than it should have.

You really didn’t know what to think of this situation...it was...just...

(Unbeknownst to you, Kylo Ren had the galaxy’s largest smirk on his face.)

“Commander?”

Kylo’s sharp voice snapped you out of...whatever it was you were dealing with.

“Have I made myself clear, Commander? Do you understand what needs to be done?”

No, as a matter of fact you did not. You had absolutely no fucking clue what Ren had been talking about for the past fifteen minutes.

“Yes, sir. Absolutely,” you lied. Frankly, you would say just about anything to get you out of this stuffy cockpit with Kylo Ren. Anything to get you back into your quarters. You’ll read books on TIE Silencer design all night if it meant you could just get _out of here_.

“Good,” Ren said, “I expect design blueprints of what you intend to do by this same time tomorrow. If I approve them, you can begin work immediately. Do you anticipate needing additional technicians to assist you?”

Frankly, you couldn’t give a shit about anything beyond your...uh...personal needs at the moment.

“Maybe one or two, sir,” you managed to breathe out. You felt Kylo nod behind you.

“Good. You’re dismissed then, Commander.”

Thank _jeebus_. You all but clamored out of the TIE silencer and bounded out of the hangar bay. Kylo Ren was an attractive piece of shit, and you had a feeling that the bastard knew exactly what he was doing. Hell, he probably planned the whole damn thing. But there was time to dwell on that later.

Right now, you needed a cold shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this! This is my first time trying my hand at UST, hopefully I did okay. I had intended to get this up sooner, but unfortunately, I've had a bit of a trying week filled with a lot of drama thanks to our friend, the coronavirus. My roommate and I are splitting up (semi-amicably) and moving into our own separate, one-bedroom apartments this June. Apartment hunting in this time has been simultaneously harder and easier than I thought it would be. Moving is always stressful. 
> 
> I've also just finished my second quarter of classes, and unfortunately for me, I failed my first one. My grad program takes this very seriously and I have to go up against a committee to "assess my academic performance." If they're convinced that I have the chops to stay, I can stay. If not...well...heh. My advisor thinks I should be fine, considering the course I failed had one grade, a final exam, that I took during coronavirus. Anywho, sorry to unload all this on you guys, but this class situation has kept me up at night for the past week. I'm sure once I get this resolved, my writing mojo will be back in full force. In the meantime, I truly hope you enjoyed! I am so appreciative for all of your support. Much love, and I hope all of you are staying safe! <3


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends! Sorry it's been so long. This chapter is kind of the calm before the storm, if you like! Things are really about to get hot in here. I hope you're strapped in and ready *wink* ;-)
> 
> Also, as an FYI, although Rey does feature in this story, there is absolutely no Reylo in here--not even in the form of jealousy or anything. Zilch, nada. If you're a Reylo shipper, this isn't the story for you (or feel free to stick around if you don't care). I have nothing against you guys and I'm not going to actively trash your ship, but just know that I do not like it and have very negative opinions of it. 'Tis all.
> 
> Last thing before we begin, I have really played around with canon here. Skywalker is alive and is training Rey, which is important to the overall plot (depending on how I feel, maybe I'll go into the details of this, but I figured you guys won't really care). So TLJ kinda happened in that Kylo & Rey murdered Snoke...but...that's it. You can use your imagination as to if the Battle of Crait happened (and Luke miraculously survived) or not. I just don't particularly care too much about those details. What I don't want to do is confuse you!
> 
> That said, enjoy!

Dear Lord, you wanted a fucking Taco Bell.

A chicken crunchwrap supreme with maybe some Nachos Bell Grande to top it off.

You had were spending pretty much all night working on the new plans for the Supreme Leader’s TIE Silencer. It was about 3 AM, and you just wanted to a crap ton of trashy food.

But of course, not just any trash. You wanted _Taco Bell_ , something you would likely never ever have again. And you were trying to not tear up over _TACO BELL_.

Fuck it.

Your shift starts in four hours—it was time for bed. Whatever you hadn’t finished could be done in the morning.

.

.

.

.

.

Sadly, your three and a half hours of sleep did nothing to curb your craving for Taco Bell. In fact, ever since your brain so helpfully reminded you that Earth fast food still exists, the craving had only amplified. It was all rather unfortunate, because you were just going to have to settle for whatever _actual inedible trash_ that was in the cafeteria.

So you and your sad, Taco-Bell-less state trudged to the cafeteria, grabbed a parfait and what looked like a halfway decent croissant, and plopped in the seat farthest away from all the people as you possibly could. You began scrolling through your holopad, reviewing the schematics you had come up (they weren’t bad considering your exhausted state, but you supposed could use some refinements), when someone sat across from you. You looked up expecting to see Zafra, but...

Oh no.

You thought you had left him behind in your yonder years.

But alas no.

It was Cecil.

He had come back to annoy you.

Force help you.

“Hey there!” Cecil exclaimed, “I haven’t seen you in like, _forever_! Whatcha been up to? I heard you got a sweet new promotion!”

You rolled your eyes.

“Yes, I did.”

Cecil’s eyes went comically wide, and a huge grin splayed across his stupid face.

“That’s amazing! How did you manage to score that one? You must have done something pretty impressive!”

You smirked.

“You could say that I impressed the higher powers with my engineering skills. They thought it would be best for me to leave the droid division.”

“Neato! Congrats on that! I hope the new job with the Knights of Ren is treating you well!”

You frowned.

“I never said I worked with the Knights, Cecil,” you stated. Cecil’s eyes went wide.

Something was...just fishy. It may not be _common knowledge_ that you worked with the Knights of Ren (you certainly hadn’t gone around and told anybody—who would you tell? Zafra was your only friend anyway), but it was conceivable the rumor mill picked it up. Most of the people outside of the officer’s division (and those that staffed said division) didn’t know who you were, let alone that you served the Knights directly. But then again, Cecil was definitely the guy to pick up on any little piece of gossip and run with it. 

“Wait really? Huh, I kept hearing about you hanging around them, so I assumed that, you know, you might work for them or something? But, like, that’s totally cool if you don’t! I don’t know, they don’t let me out of the weapons bay much,” he said, giving you a tight, forced smile.

“I see,” you stated. You working for the Knights (and Kylo) wasn’t exactly supposed to be a secret, but you had assumed that there wasn’t a formal, personnel announcement about that for a reason. Most people that you interacted with knew you as a senior engineer, and that was it. Cecil was a harmless enough guy, you supposed. It was probably not that big of a deal.

“Well ya know, don’t mind me, I just only know what I hear I guess. You can’t really trust anyone, I suppose, right?” Cecil said.

No, no you couldn’t.

“I’m just a senior engineer, Cecil. I work on more specialized systems now. I’m afraid I cannot tell you much more about it,” you replied.

“Oh for sure!” he replied enthusiastically, instantly returning to the annoying Cecil you knew and hated, “I’m sure a job like that’s got to keep you up at night!”

It was certainly _one_ of the things that kept you up at night.

“Well, I hate to cut and run, but I’m running late to my shift. I just thought I’d pop on over and say hello! Have a great day, friend!” Cecil chirped, and then he dumped his food and shuffled out of the cafeteria. You stared after him. It had been a while since you had seen Cecil, and although you weren’t eager to spend more time with him, something had been very off about him. It was almost as though he was...

...struggling with something? 

You shook your head. Whatever it was, Cecil was an adult, he could handle his own problems. It was very likely nothing that you could control. Pushing it out of your mind, you quickly snarfed down the rest of your breakfast and made your way over to your lab.

You didn’t have much longer before the Supreme Leader expected his blueprints.

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The Supreme Leader, Kylo Ren, was in a terrible mood.

To be fair to his subordinates, it was generally pretty hard to tell when he was in a good mood. But in this case, it was obvious that he was in a supremely (heh) _bad mood_.

His day yesterday was off to a decent start, and was about to finish decently with him getting you flustered as fuck. He figured it was only a matter of time before he drilled it into your thick skull that ignoring whatever-it-was between the two of you was just a stupid idea, and that you should just let him take you to bed. It was all going very, very well.

Until that scavenger, Rey, decided to bother him again. Or more accurately, the Force had decided that they were long overdue for a conversation. To be fair to Rey she hated this connection just as much as he did, and the past several months of dead silence from the bond had been nothing short of bliss. But something had decided to just fling the whole thing right back open again.

Whatever this was, it was not going to end well.

“ _You_!” she had hissed when the bond had reopened. Kylo rolled his eyes. Really what was this woman expecting at this point?

“What is it that you want?” he snarked back, “I don’t have time for this.”

“I have no desire to speak with you,” she seethed. 

“And what makes you think that I want this any more than you do? If it were up to me, you, Skywalker, and your ragtag group of Resistance rogues would be _dead_!”

Rey started at Kylo’s anger. Generally during these Force bond sessions, he put on a good show of being able to control his emotions. Rey wasn’t stupid—she knew Kylo was angry and hated her. But he never actually showed his anger to her. It only served to make him look more like a monster in her eyes.

Kylo rolled his eyes again. For someone so strong in the Force, Rey was terrible at keeping her thoughts to herself. Her holier-than-thou attitude was really starting to grate at him, and clearly spending so much time with his mom and uncle was not helping.

“You need to learn to control your thought projection, Rey. At this rate, I’ll figure out where you are and end this for good,” Kylo said. Rey glowered at him.

“Well maybe you should _stop listening_!”

Kylo smirked internally. He’d heard that one before. Although this time was considerably less entertaining.

“You’re a security breach to your precious Resistance,” Kylo continue, “I’m surprised Skywalker hasn’t disciplined you for it. Perhaps he’s gone soft in his old age? You should have joined me when you had the chance—I would have trained you better.”

If looks could kill, Kylo would have been disintegrated. But thankfully, Rey couldn’t do him much harm at the moment.

“Your jealousy of me and your resentment towards Master Luke is ridiculous. It’s pathetic,” Rey growled, “You’re just a boy hiding behind a mask. You’re _weak_.”

_“Do not allow her to provoke your anger_ , _”_ Snoke used to say, _“Anger may be the fuel of the Dark Side, but it must be harnessed, controlled. If you allow yourself to lose control over some useless girl, then you are not worthy of the position you hold.”_

Kylo had come to despise Snoke, but even he had to admit that the evil man wasn’t totally full of shit. And this was one piece of advice he intended to follow. Taking a deep breath, Kylo straightened himself up and looked Rey squarely in the eyes. She took a step back in response.

“If I’m so weak, then come find me. Fight me in single combat. You nearly succeeded once, why not finish what you started? Come here and kill me,” he said.

Rey’s eyes widened, and Kylo smirked in response. Of all the people in the galaxy, Rey was definitely his equal in the Light, and she was exceptionally skilled at the use of a lightsaber (hell, she nearly sliced his face in half the first time she fought with one). But Kylo knew that Rey had one major weakness—she was too good. She was so good that she refused to see or accept reality in many instances. Rey still held out hope that Kylo could be redeemed—that he would see the Light, become Ben Solo once again, and reunite with his mother. But that would absolutely, never happen.

Ben Solo was dead.

Kylo killed him long ago.

And until Rey recognized that, she was not a worthy adversary. She was merely a waste of his time.

“That’s what I thought,” Kylo said when as Rey continued to remain silent. He could feel the Bond closing—his time with her would soon be up, and he would have the last word.

“I will find you, Rey,” Kylo said, “And when I do, I will destroy you and Luke Skywalker. I will destroy the last of the Jedi.”

The last thing Kylo saw before the Bond closed completely was Rey’s face, pale with fear. Kylo smirked once more. Good. She should be afraid of him.

Kylo hated the Bond with Rey. He had spent many hours researching how he could sever it, but to no avail. Yet, in the several months since he had last seen or spoken with her, he had grown complacent. Yes, he had an empire to run and his attention could not constantly focus on Rey, Skywalker, and the last of the Resistance, but this latest conversation had reminded him that he had ignored them for far too long.

It was time to put an end to the Resistance and the pathetic Jedi once and for all. 

.

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You made your way as quickly as you could to the hangar bay where Ren’s TIE Silencer was docked. The Supreme Leader had asked you to meet him there with the blueprints you had come up with. If he approved them, then you and the technician team could begin work immediately. You were pretty confident that he would approve the plans, but there was still a sliver of doubt. Ren was an unpredictable man in many aspects, who knew what would happen. And after your last encounter, you weren’t sure if you would be able to maintain your composure if he tried to pull a similar stunt.

When you entered the hangar bay, you were surprised to find Ren there already. Strange. Normally he was late to all of your meetings. When you entered, he whipped around and stared at you.

“Commander,” he said in a clipped tone, so very unlike how he had addressed you yesterday, “How long were you planning on keeping me waiting?”  
  


Uh oh.

Something had clearly gotten his knickers in a knot in the past day, because you were a good five minutes early to your scheduled meeting time.

But if the Supreme Leader was in a bad mood, now was not the time to try your hand at sass-mouthing.

“My apologies, sir. I did not realize you were waiting,” you replied, as diplomatically as you could. 

“I was hoping that you knew better than to waste my precious time. I will have you thrown out if it happens again.”

Oh boy.

Cinderella here was not going to the ball, clearly.

_Steady as she goes, brain_ , you thought, _just hand over the blueprints and we can be on our way_.

“I have the proposed schematics for your TIE Silencer upgrades, sir,” you said, holding out your holopad. Ren looked at the holopad as if it had personally offended him (not that you could really tell what was going on underneath that garbage can) for a moment before snatching the thing out of your hand. You started counting backwards from one-hundred in your head as he began scrolling through the plans you had set.

  
You had just reached sixty-five before Ren had a bantha.

“This is unacceptable!” he shouted, shoving the datapad in your face, watching as you meekly took it back.

“I hired you because you are supposedly the _best_ engineer that the First Order has to offer, and yet you give me this drivel. Did you even _read_ my specifications?”

You blinked.

“Of—of course, sir.”

“And _what_ did they say?”

Well, nothing. Frankly. Entirely unhelpful.

“Um, they were rather nondescript, sir,” you tried, “So I thought I would take a bit of creative license with the design.”

Ren stared at you for what seemed like an eternity. Oh boy, someone was getting murdered today, and it looked like you were next on the menu.

Joy.

“Well you thought, _wrong_ ,” he hissed, “These are not what I asked for—”

_You didn’t actually ask for anything, Princess._

Oh oops.

Ren had heard that.

He pointed a menacing finger at you.

“You will _watch what you say and think_ , Commander! Someone of your rank should have much better self-control and more respect for your superiors. I suggest you speak with General Hux for pointers on how to do this.”

As if you would _ever_ as that fuckboi for advice.

“I want these plans redesigned and sent to me by the end of business today,” Ren boomed.

_What?!_

It had taken you _all night_ to come up with the plans you currently had. How in the hell were you going to do a complete overhaul in three hours??

“I don’t care how you do it, I want it done!” Ren hissed, starting towards the bay doors, “And should I actually approve this new set of plans, you have one week to finish work on my ship.”

Uh....

WHAT?

“Oh, and Commander?”

You gulped. What now?

“Yes, sir?”

“You will create designs for an enlarged cockpit as well, enough space to include another passenger. You, and only you, will be accompanying me on an incredibly important mission next week, and I would prefer if your ridiculous head were not obstructing my view.”

Hey! You took offense to that.

“Good, perhaps that will incentivize you to get your work done properly.”

And with that, Kylo Ren stormed out of the hangar bay, leaving you incredibly insulted and confused. You squeezed your eyes shut and rubbed at your temples, feeling a migraine coming. Not only did you have limited time to redesign the upgrades to Ren’s ship, you had also just found out that you were going to be his most illustrious companion on an incredibly important (and likely dangerous) mission.

Alone.

By yourself.

With Ren.

For Force knows how long while being stuck in a cramped TIE Silencer. You’d only just gotten back from medical leave. How was this even _allowed_? Well, he was the Supreme Leader, he could do as he wished, you supposed. Frustrated, you made your way back to lab, ready to settle in and figure out this shit. As you sat at your desk, you couldn’t help but indulge a rather inappropriate thought that you had been keeping (very well you might add) to yourself throughout this whole encounter.

Kylo Ren was incredibly sexy when he was angry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alrighty folks, I hope you liked that. The next chapters will be a bit slow to come out because I envision them being longer & containing a lot more. The plot's driving up a bit more (now that I have it more figured out than I did a week ago). 
> 
> As you can probably tell, we are building up to smut, clearly. I should warn you guys, I have *never* written that before (alas, I am a poor, sheltered, little nerd). I still haven't decided if I want to try my hand at that, but should I make that decision, if any of you would like to *ahem* assist me, I would be most grateful.
> 
> Thank you all for your kind comments from last time! Just letting you know that I made my petition and the committee approved it, so I can continue with my graduate studies so long as I pass the rest of my courses from here on out. You are all such lovely people, and I really appreciate your words of encouragement both for me personally and on my stories!
> 
> I hope all of you are staying safe during this pandemic, and that your loved ones are safe too. As always, feel free to let me know what you thought of this!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, I'm back! I'm so sorry it has been so long, but the past few weeks have been rather nuts. I hope you all aren't too antsy with anticipation for this chapter. And if you are, I hope it delivers. I promise the next one will be up faster.

By the absolute fucking skin of your teeth, you had somehow managed to come up with blueprints that met the Supreme Leader’s expectations—by the end of your workday. The funny thing was, you _actually_ didn’t change all that much from your original design. You just happened to include some additional bells and whistles, such as more advanced weaponry, a sleeker interface, and a brand-new, custom-designed astromech droid.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t still a lot of work, and when you had sent the new plans to Ren’s holopad, you were just about to collapse from exhaustion. You sat for a few minutes with your head on your desk hoping to stave off of some of the splitting headache you had just developed when you heard a ping on your holopad. Your inbox contained a message from Ren with a single phrase:

“Passable. Start work immediately.”

Perfect. You quickly sent a message to the tech crew assigned to make the installations letting them know to start as soon as possible, before logging off your terminal and heading back to your quarters. On your way, you ran smack into your friend, Zafra Ren.

“Commander,” she said, “I was just looking for you.”

“Hey Zafra,” you said, trying not to give away how bad your migraine was getting, “How’s it going?”

Zafra frowned for a moment, not quite understanding your phrasing.

“How’s...what going?” she asked. You shook your head. It had been a while since you had used Earth colloquialisms, and clearly your scrambled brain was defaulting right back into them.

“Sorry, it’s just an old Earth phrase. What I mean is, ‘how are you?’”

Zafra gave a smile.

“I am well. I was wondering if you would accompany me for dinner?” she asked.

“Under normal circumstances, I would love to, but I am just not feeling up to people at the moment...or cafeteria food,” you said, “I’m getting a really bad migraine.”

Zafra frowned again, deeper this time.

“You should go to the medbay and get some pain medication if it’s that bad,” she suggested. You shook your head.

“No, I’m fine. I just need some rest is all.”

At that Zafra gave a frustrated huff.

“Commander, we’ve talked about this before. When you are unwell, you need to take every precaution to fix it. I’ve been recently informed that you are accompanying the Supreme Leader on a mission soon, and you will need to be in top physical shape for this. If you are not, then we cannot trust you to do your job, and you could potentially endanger Master Ren’s life. Is that what you want?”

You groaned. Why was Zafra always right?

“Okay, okay, you win. Will you take me there? This fluorescent lighting is really not helping.”

“Certainly.” And with that, Zafra put her hand on your shoulder and guided you to the medbay.

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Cecil wasn’t a bad guy. Even despite working for the First Order, he never considered himself to be a bad guy, and if you asked anyone who knew him, they’d say the same. Was he annoying? Sure. But bad? Not really. It was only recently, when Cecil had found himself in a bit of a situation, that he started to question those convictions.

Sighing, Cecil pulled up a holovid of himself and his younger sister, Margo, playing some kind of game back on their homeworld. The holovid was taken not long before Cecil left to join the First Order. He hadn’t wanted to join, not by a long shot, but it was the best job offer he had. After his father had passed away, he needed some way of helping out his small family. His mom was old and didn’t work, leaving his sister to scrounge around, looking for odd jobs to put food on the table. The Order paid pretty well for a weapons tech with his level of experience, and since he didn’t spend many of his credits, he was able to send a sizeable portion back home to his mom and sister. This wasn’t an abnormal thing amongst First Order employees, but it was certainly unusual. Most people in the First Order tended to leave their families behind when they joined—it’s not as if the Order was a particularly friendly place for a wife and kids.

And unfortunately, Cecil had learned that lesson a little too late, and his attachment to his past life seemed to be the reason he was in this situation at all. A few more minutes went by before Cecil’s holopad pinged, signaling that he had another message from his ‘employer,’ no doubt with another assignment he needed to complete.

Cecil rubbed his eyes with the palm of his hands. All of the tasks his ‘employer’ had assigned him had to do with you. Cecil hated lying to you, much less doing anything that would potentially put you in harm’s way. He knew the two of you weren’t close, after all, you barely knew each other. But Cecil had been harboring a bit of a crush on you for a while. He knew it was silly, he knew you didn’t like him, and that nothing would happen between the two of you. He kept it completely to himself. The most he ever tried was to be your friend, but you clearly weren’t interested in that either. He was about to give up when you got promoted, making the whole process of forgetting you and moving on with his life easier...in theory.

It was a few months after you had left to work with the Knights that his ‘employer’ found him. Cecil didn’t know who he was—every time they met to discuss a new assignment, he kept his face hidden and stood mostly in the shadows. All Cecil knew was that this man was a high ranking official with a vendetta against all of his colleagues. He had had one for years.

And you were the newest addition to that pool.

Checking the message from said employer, Cecil groaned as he realized that the man wanted another face-to-face meeting. Sighing, Cecil pulled on his uniform and walked briskly to their meeting place—a rarely used cargo bay in the back of the _Finalizer_. When he entered the cargo bay, his employer stepped out slightly from the shadows, his figure obscured by his black clothing and low lighting.

“I have another assignment for you,” his employer hissed.

“So I’ve gathered,” Cecil quipped, “How much longer is this going to go on? You promised me that this wouldn’t take long.”

“When your usefulness to me has run out, trust me, you will be the first to know.”

Cecil did not like the sound of that.

“I’ve done everything you’ve asked. I’m growing tired of your games. Please, just let them go.”

“My, my,” his employer chucked, “Such demands from someone who stands to lose everything if he does not comply.”

Cecil blinked back tears. The man was right—Cecil did stand to lose everything. Whoever this man was, his reach extended far. His mom—his sister—if Cecil didn’t do something they would be—

No. Cecil was doing what he could to protect them. So long as he followed these man’s demands his mom and sister would be safe. Whoever this man was, he wanted something from you, and while Cecil hated doing this to you, if it came down to you or his family—it was no choice really. Cecil would do anything to protect them.

If you had to die so that his family could live, he would be upset and it would haunt him for the rest of his life, but he wouldn’t regret it. Not for a second.

Cecil was sure that he was a bad person.

“What do you want me to do?” he asked, quietly.

“Get yourself assigned to the technician team that will be making the upgrades to the Supreme Leader’s TIE Silencer. I have a few...modifications I would like to make to it.”

The man tossed a holopad at Cecil. Cecil opened up the blueprints the man gave him and briefly glanced through them. His eyes widened at what he saw.

“Why are you doing this?” Cecil asked. The man scoffed.

“Asking questions will not help your precious Margo, now would it? See to it that this is done.”

Cecil could only give a small nod.

“Yes, sir.”

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.

That migraine that you had was thankfully just that...a bad migraine and not the beginnings of the Ayodhyan Flu, which had sneakily come aboard the ship thanks to several officers alighting to multiple planets in the Ayodhyan system while you had been on Urmila. It would have really sucked to have had to quarantine yourself right after coming back from medical leave for injuries.

To be on the safe side, you decided to supervise most of the upgrades to Ren’s ship from your office, only heading to the hangar bay when you wanted to a change of scenery or questions arose that only you could answer. The upgrades went relatively smoothly with very few hiccups. The only unusual thing was the fact that one of the weapons technicians had called out sick and Cecil was recommended as a replacement. You nearly spit out your caf when you saw the replacement request. You had always thought that Cecil was an incompetent, annoying, little bastard but to be fair to him, you had never actually seen him at work. So he could be perfectly good at his job and you would be none the wiser about it. Which seemed to be the case here. Cecil’s supervisor had recommended him as a replacement, and not seeing the harm in it, you signed off the request.

And apparently with Cecil’s help, the technician team had finished well ahead of schedule, giving you some time to actually go and inspect the work and make sure everything was in order. You had sent a quick message to the Supreme Leader informing him that his TIE Silencer was ready for him to use at his convenience, and the man responded saying that he wanted to leave immediately—

—A full two days’ earlier than when you were expected to leave.

Joy.

Which is how you found yourself, a few days later, with an overnight bag, standing in front of Ren’s TIE Silencer waiting for HRH to grace you with his presence. Zafra Ren had decided to come with you so she could see (read: screw around with) the new weapons system.

“Wow!” she shouted from the cockpit, “You really did a number on this one. Why can’t I have weapons like this? It’s not fair that Master Ren gets all the fun and I don’t.”

You chuckled. Honestly, Zafra and the new transphasic torpedoes you had just installed sounded like a really destructive combination.

“Technically I am your personal engineer, Zafra. I can install whatever you want on your ship. I don’t think the Supreme Leader would be very happy if he didn’t have his own special system though.”

Zafra huffed.

“What a buzzkill,” she grumbled, “Speaking of which, where are you two going anyway?”

You sighed. Of all the questions in the universe you had, that was the number one on your mind.

“Excellent question, Lady Ren. I have no clue.”

Zafra rolled her eyes so hard that you thought they would end up at the back of her head, and climbed out of the ship.

“That is so incredibly typical of Master Ren,” she said, “One moment he insists that you accompany him on an important, dangerous mission to a top secret place and the next, you find yourself on Hoth, in the middle of an ice-storm, freezing your ass off while trying to find some horrifically outdated, frozen-solid radio transceiver from the old Rebel Alliance.”

You chuckled.

“Surely it won’t be _that_ bad,” you said. Zafra just shook her head.

“Just don’t get your hopes up.”

Before you could reply to that, the Supreme Leader finally decided to show up, storming in with his usual drama—cape flying and all that. He stopped when he was a few feet away from you and stared at Zafra.

And she just stared right back. No doubt the two of them were having a very interesting, telepathic conversation that you were not privy too. Full Vulcan-style. Live long and prosper and all that.

“You may leave, Zafra,” Kylo commanded, and Zafra nodded, taking one last glance at you before leaving the hangar bay.

Weird.

But then again, so was this entire galaxy.

“Get in the ship, Commander. We don’t have much time,” Kylo said without any pleasantries.

Sighing, you followed him into the ship and sat in the new co-pilot’s seat, stashing your overnight bag underneath your seat. Kylo didn’t say anything, and instead powered up the ship and briefly inspected the new controls.

“You said you modified the weapons systems to include transphasic torpedoes,” he said, “Where are those controls?”

You leaned over and pointed out the panel that controlled the new weapons.

“Just here, sir. Just press this button to activate them, and line up the ship with your target. The navigation system for the torpedoes is automatic and very fast, you only need a few seconds before you get a lock. Press the same button again to fire.”

Kylo nodded but said nothing. You leaned back in your seat, an unpleasant feeling washing over you.

“Um—do you anticipate needing them on our mission, sir?” you asked tentatively.

Kylo didn’t respond for a few minutes, instead focusing on navigating the TIE Silencer out of the hangar bay. Once you left the _Finalizer_ , he input coordinates into the navigation system, too fast for you to pick out what they were, and pushed the ship into lightspeed.

“I certainly hope not,” he responded after about twenty minutes of flying.

You gulped. 

You hated vagueness.

Sensing your unease, Kylo sighed and toggled with the controls for a moment to set the ship on autopilot. He reached up and unlocked his mask with a _hiss_ from the decompression, and turned to look at you.

“You have questions,” he stated, “Now is the time to ask them.”

You blinked, not expecting such consideration from him.

“Where are we going, sir?”

“Dromund Kaas,” he replied. At the look of confusion on your face he continued.

“There are ancient Sith temples there,” he said, “There are few things there that I need. If I am to win the war against Skywalker.”

A Sith temple? This didn’t sound good. Zafra was wrong about this one—this mission sounded like a very interesting one, and not in a good way.

“What kinds of things?” you asked.

Kylo sighed and turned to look out the viewport.

“How much do you know about the Jedi and the Sith, Commander?” he asked, softly.

“Very little, other than the fact that they don’t get along,” you said, “I’ve only known about the existence of the Force for a short time. We don’t have Force-sensitives, or whatever you call them, back on Earth.”

Kylo rolled his eyes.

“I guarantee that you do,” he said, “Your people are just too primitive to recognize it.”

You chose to ignore the obnoxious jab at your planet.

“The Jedi and the Sith were constantly at war—one side utilized the Light Side of the Force and the other primarily wielded the Dark Side,” Kylo continued, “I’ve always found such distinctions to be ridiculous. There are plenty of Jedi who were terrible people, Skywalker is one of them.”

You didn’t really know much about Luke Skywalker, other than the rumors that went around on the _Finalizer_ and what Zafra had told you. The more and more you heard about this guy, the less you liked him. He just seemed like a colossal piece of work.

Kylo chuckled at that.

“That he is,” he agreed, “I’ve always found him to be quite difficult. But I suppose that is to be expected amongst family members. He is my uncle after all.”

Well that was news to you. And the plot thickens. 

“You don’t seem surprised,” Kylo stated. You just shrugged.

“Well, to be honest, sir, after spending a few years with the First Order, not much surprises me anymore. Plus, the time and resources you’ve spent looking for Skywalker makes me suspect that your vendetta against him isn’t merely ideological. It’s personal. What did he do to you, if I may ask?”

Kylo frowned, turning to face you.

“You are a lot more perceptive than people give you credit for, Commander.”

Aww, how sweet. You may be a self-centered piece of shit most of the time, but you could see the bigger picture of things. Generally speaking.

“Can I trust you, Commander?” Kylo asked. You were a bit taken aback by the question. Surely he knew he could if he had taken you on a mission with him...and promoted you in the first place? Right?

“You have open access to my thoughts, sir,” you replied, “If I were untrustworthy, I wouldn’t be here right now, would I?”

Kylo chuckled again.

“You are quite snarky, Commander. It’s the one of the things that I like the most about you. It’s refreshing.”

(You will never admit this to anyone, but you definitely fought a blush at that.)

“But that is a story for another time,” Kylo continued, “We will reach Dromund Kaas in a few hours, and you will need to be prepared for what we encounter.”

That...didn’t sound good.

Oh boy.

“There is a holocron that once belonged to the Sith Lord, Darth Nihilus, that I’ve been searching for, for years. I managed to narrow its location down to Dromund Kaas, but there are two major Sith temples there, and I do not know which one it will be in. We will need to explore both.”

“What do you need this holocron for?” you asked.

“Darth Nihilus was known as the Ravager for his insatiable hunger, particularly for the life force of other sentient beings, especially Force-users.”

You winced. That was gruesome.

“Sounds like one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” you mused. Kylo turned towards you, confused.

“The—what?”

“Oh, it’s an old Earth legend, part of Christian lore. The arrival of the apocalypse is supposedly signaled by four entities each riding an animal called a horse. One of them is Famine—he causes immense hunger across the world.”

Kylo looked thoughtful for a moment.

“A fitting analogy,” he said, “The holocron supposedly contains a part of Nihilus’ soul—the wielder can use the knowledge within it to drain the life force of anyone, including the most powerful of Force-users.”

Oh.

Oh dear.

You could see where this was going.

“You plan to use it on Skywalker,” you stated. Kylo’s eyes narrowed at you, his defensive walls coming back up.

“Do you have a problem with this, Commander?” he hissed.

You would be lying if you said this whole thing didn’t make you queasy. You may be a heartless bitch for the most part, but even someone as godless as you had some morals. And yes, the irony wasn’t lost on you—you worked for an organization that blew up entire star systems without so much as batting an eyelash all under the guise of _peace_. How many totalitarian regimes back on Earth did that? Not an insignificant number. The difference here is that you were complicit in this entire circus. And you knew that walking in, but you just didn’t _care_ at the time, and you hadn’t cared for all of the years you had been with the Order. Maybe you personally hadn’t killed anybody, but it didn’t make you less responsible. Somebody had to use the weapons you made, after all.

But this whole thing with Skywalker just...rubbed you the wrong way, and you couldn’t understand why. However, the twisted Brady Bunch over here were at the very least, very firmly, _not_ your monkeys. So you decided to do what you always did when you had a minor crisis of ethics—you took Kylo and his weird family issues and slotted them very deliberately into the mental drawer in your brain entitled “Not My Problem.” A drawer that was getting close to being dangerously full.

“No, sir,” you finally replied, “But may I ask why you brought me along? Surely one of your Knights would be better suited for this task, as they are Force-sensitive?”

Kylo relaxed a bit at the change of topic.

“No, you are the best choice, precisely because you are not Force-sensitive.”

Come again?

“The Dark Side is incredibly strong at these temples. Most Force-sensitives who enter it are immediately plagued by visions or apparitions, ghosts if you will. They can be very—distracting to say the least. I have trained for years to control the visions and ignore them, but even I am not strong enough to withstand them for the period of time we will be in the temples.”

Uh oh.

“These temples,” Kylo continued, “Were built to protect their information and relics using the Dark Side. It will not be easy for us to take Darth Nihilus’ holocron. He will have made sure that even if it is found, it will not leave the temple. I need you there to act as a grounding agent, something to tether me to reality. I should be able to manage myself for most of our journey, but not all of it. As a non-sensitive, you will not be able to see any of these visions. You will not be affected by the pull of the Dark Side. In addition to making any repairs the ship may need, I may need you to guide me out of the temple.”

You blinked.

So.

You were about to go on a mission to a creepy Sith temple, alone with your boss who you had a massive crush on, to collect the magic wand of the Horseman of the Apocalypse. And you would have to complete said gargantuan task while dragging your boss, who would be suffering from hellacious, nightmare-inducing hallucinations, to safety.

Ok.

Cool.

Simple.

“You should get some sleep,” Kylo said, softly, “We will be arriving in a few hours and you will need your strength.”

You nodded, shifting in your seat in a feeble attempt to get comfortable. Kylo turned away from you and began to manually pilot the ship, while you closed your eyes, desperately trying to go to sleep.

_Oh Zafra_ , you thought, _Why couldn’t you have been right this time?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for bearing with me guys! I'm navigating my online classes, and it's been a bit of time. Anyway, I'm getting really excited now because the plot is starting to drive, and I hope you like what we're building up to and the direction this is going!! In the meantime, please feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments. 
> 
> I hope you all are staying safe in these trying times. And if I've managed to entertain you even the slightest bit, I will consider that mission accomplished! <3
> 
> Also, please come visit me on tumblr as @maharani-radha!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone!! I hope you enjoy the next installment of this story. Things are starting to heat up here :)

Entering the atmosphere and landing the ship onto Dromund Kaas was a rather uneventful process. The First Order controlled the system where the planet resided, and being the Supreme Leader, Kylo didn’t need any landing permission. Dromund Kaas itself was, for the most part, uninhabited. There was a First Order outpost on the planet that had minimal staff who didn’t live on the planet. So once night fell, the planet was essentially lifeless (with the exception of a few rather nasty animals). Prior to your arrival, Kylo had ordered the outpost to be cleared so that the two of you could complete your mission in as much secrecy as possible. So when you landed at the outpost, it was rather acutely clear that the two of you were completely alone.

Dromund Kaas was not a nice planet. It was full of mountains, jungles, and general wilderness. The outpost itself was situated into the side of the mountain. It was very small...much smaller than the complex on Urmila. Kylo parked the craft in the landing strip on a cliff next to the outpost and indicated for you to exit the ship first. Grabbing your bag, you clamored out of the ship and were immediately hit with cold, biting wind. It nearly knocked you over.

Holy shit. You were not dressed for this weather. Your First Order uniform wasn’t thick enough to block out the cold. You shivered as you looked over the edge of cliff and into the dark jungle below. You had no idea what time it was—clearly night had fallen. If it weren’t for the bright glow of the planet’s two moons, you wouldn’t have been able to see anything.

Had the space people invented flashlights? Come to think of it, you hadn’t seen one in your time in the First Order. Or perhaps flashlights were too primitive?

“The planet is frigid at night,” Kylo said, having exited the shuttle, “If we don’t enter the complex soon, we may freeze to death.”

Charming.

“We will start our exploration of the temples in the morning. For now, we will need to climb down this cliff to get to the outpost.”

Oh.

Oh great.

Kylo raised an eyebrow.

“Is there a problem, Commander? Surely it has not escaped your notice that it was impossible to land the ship anywhere else?”

You shook your head.

“Uh...no, sir, I am fully aware of why we landed here. It’s just that I’ve not exactly gone rock climbing before. And being up this high gives me vertigo.”

Kylo rolled his eyes.

“I’m not going to make you _free-scale a sandstone cliff_ , Commander. There’s a path, a very narrow path, but a path nonetheless down to the outpost. And as for your vertigo, control it. The Dark Side is incredibly strong on this planet, and the longer I stay here, the harder it will be for me to control myself. I am relying on you to be the sane one of the two of us.”

Kylo had clearly picked the wrong woman for the job. You were the most _in_ -sane person you knew.

And speaking of the master murderer himself, he had suddenly gone quiet and was instead staring off into the forest behind the TIE Silencer. Confused, you also looked at the spot he seemed so focused on, but couldn’t make anything out. If there was something ( _or someone_ ) there, you couldn’t see them. Now concerned, you turned to Kylo who continued staring into the forest.

“Um, sir?” you asked, quietly, “Is everything all right?”

Kylo started at the sound of your voice. He blinked a few times before turning to address you.

“Perfectly, Commander. Come, let’s get to the compound before it gets much darker.”

And with that, Kylo strode towards the path leading down to the complex...said path which happened to be in the forest he was just staring at so intensely. You gulped, but followed him. Something told you that you had just successfully brought Kylo out of the first strange funk he was going to enter while being on this planet. You shuddered to think of how it would possibly get worse as you explored the temples in the following day. Either way, you certainly didn’t blame Kylo for his uneasiness.

You didn’t have to be Force-sensitive to know that, as you made your way down the winding path towards the compound, there was someone in the forest. Watching you. As if they had been expecting you.

Despite the appearances, you were not alone on this planet.

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Thankfully, you and Kylo were able to make it into the complex without any issues (and you didn’t even fall off the path, down the side of cliff, into your impending death! What an accomplishment for you!). The inside of the building was frankly just as creepy as the entire planet, with nobody there to keep even the automatic lights on. But that didn’t seem to faze Kylo (or if it did, he didn’t say anything), and he just walked through the complex, making a series of turns that you were way too tired to follow. Eventually, Kylo stopped in front of a set of doors, that could only be residential quarters for guests and any staff that needed to stay overnight. There were very few of them, probably five or six. You couldn’t imagine that anyone would actually willingly spend the night down here. Hell, you didn’t want to spend a single more minute down here, let alone a few more days.

“We will stay in one room,” Kylo announced. You balked at that.

Uh what?

You were a big girl, thank you very much. Yes this planet very much gave you the creeps but you were fully capable of putting up with it. Plus...you may be obnoxious, but you had a semblance of...dignity to maintain.

Kylo rolled his eyes at that.

“I have no designs on your virtue, Commander—” (you snorted internally as you both knew that was very, very _not_ true), “—but this planet is incredibly dangerous. It would not be wise for us to sleep in separate quarters. If something were to happen to you, I would not be able to get to you in time, and same for me.”

You frowned at that.

“What could possibly happen to me? I’m not Force-sensitive, and I’m sure this complex is strong enough to keep out any animals that might prowl around at night.”

Kylo sighed and shook his head. After a moment, he lifted off his helmet, allowing you to finally see the concerned face underneath. You were slightly taken aback by the how prominently his emotions were displayed on his face. It was so unlike him.

“You may not be Force-sensitive, but even the most non-sensitive of non-sensitives still gets uneasy on this planet. Given the choice, would you want to be spending the night here?”

Hell no.

Kylo nodded.

“Exactly. The Force flows through all of us, even though you cannot feel it. It would be naïve of you to think that it wouldn’t affect you at all. The entities that are down here on the planet...they are mostly drawn to me. But that does not mean they cannot harm you.”

Wait...

“The visions you mentioned,” you began, “I thought you said I won’t be affected by them.”

Kylo shook his head.

“No, you won’t. You won’t see anything. But just because you cannot see something doesn’t mean that it won’t affect you. I don’t think the entities down here will notice you, so long as you keep your head down and do exactly as I say. And that begins will staying in the same room as me. It is safer.”

You were not convinced. But frankly the look on Kylo’s face was just so...disturbing that there was no way you could say no to him. He looked...

Afraid.

You had never seen the Supreme Leader afraid before.

What the hell was this place?

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Rohini Ren woke up in a sweat. That feeling that she had been having for the past few weeks was getting more intense with each passing day. Something was going to happen. Something bad. And she just didn’t know what to do. All she knew was that she had to tell someone.

Scrambling out of bed, Rohini walked to her refresher and splashed some water onto her face, hoping that it would get her to calm down. She took a few deep breaths and looked at herself in the mirror. She looked awful—she was clearly tired, the dark circles under her eyes had intensified and her hair looked like a rat’s nest. It would be plain as day to anyone who saw her now that she hadn’t been sleeping properly for at least a week.

Rohini knew she needed to get help for her sleeping habits, but she just didn’t know who to turn to. The medbay staff would give her a pill and send her on her way...as if a pill would calm the nightmares of a strong Force-sensitive such as herself. Master Ren was too busy, and she knew that she couldn’t bother him with this. And there was the tiny issue of the fact that he was not currently on the _Finalizer_. No, Rohini had to be an adult and figure this one out. But she needed someone else’s help. She couldn’t battle this alone anymore.

Taking a deep breath, Rohini pulled on a pair of lounge pants and a sweatshirt over her pajamas, slipped on her shoes, and walked down the hallway to the one person in her group that she felt closest to. Standing outside Zafra Ren’s door, Rohini hesitated for a moment, unsure of if she wanted to go through with this, before ringing the buzzer. It didn’t take very long for Zafra to answer the door—the woman never slept, it seemed. Zafra blinked, clearly surprised at seeing Rohini outside of her door.

“Rohini,” Zafra stated, “Is everything all right?”

It was a stupid question, really, because Rohini frankly looked _terrible_. She must not have slept in days. Whatever was plaguing her had been going on for a long time. How had nobody noticed?

Had anyone cared?

“Zafra, _I need to speak to you. Something is wrong_ ,” Rohini said in their native language.

Zafra’s eyes widened. Rohini had never spoken to her in Sanskrit, the native language of the people in the Ayodhyan system. Not once. Whatever this was, it was serious and Rohini only trusted her with it. Nodding, Zafra took a step back and let Rohini into her quarters.

It was going to be a long night for Zafra Ren.

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Sharing the same quarters as the Supreme Leader of the First Order, surprisingly, went off without a hitch. It was awkward at first, sure, but the awkwardness didn’t last for very long considering how tired you two were.

The quarters were studio quarters, with a small dividing wall between the bed and main living area. Kylo insisted that you take the bed, saying that he would likely be up for most of the night anyway. You frowned at that and were about to protest (considering he was the damn _Supreme Leader_ and you were just an Earthling), but the look of pure exasperation on Kylo’s face shut you up. You nodded and went into the refresher to change into your pajamas while Kylo did...whatever Kylo did. You eventually collapsed into a rather uneventful and dreamless sleep, sadly the same could not be said for Kylo.

Kylo hadn’t been exaggerating when he told you that the Dark Side was strong enough on this planet to overpower even his years of training. He was probably understating exactly how difficult this was for him. The moment the two of you had exited the shuttle, Kylo knew that you were not alone. Something was watching you, following you. Kylo knew that you sensed it too—it was rather impossible for anyone to spend even a small amount of time on this planet without feeling jumpy.

Kylo thanked his lucky stars that you couldn’t actually _see_ the entity in question. He had noticed the black, hooded figured in the woods immediately after stepping off the ship. It had slowly wound between the trees as the two of you walked along the narrow pathway towards the complex. It had vanished just before the you both entered the outpost, and Kylo thought he had lost it, but alas he was sorely mistaken. The creature had somehow found its way into the complex. The thing was weak, sure, but it had enough of a presence to walk through solid durasteel—something that most Jedi Force ghosts had trouble with. But still, inside the complex it was. Kylo had found it lurking in the dimly-lit corridor of the residential wing. It was why he was so insistent that you stay with him. There was no telling what it could do to you if you were by yourself. The thing was weak and so far, wary of Kylo, so if he were around to protect you, it wouldn’t be able to hurt you.

At least, for now.

Kylo let out a shaky breath at the thought and continued to stare at the door. The thing was still out in the hallway, right outside the door. He could feel it. It wasn’t stupid enough to try to come inside the room. No, the thing was waiting, watching, biding its time. For what, Kylo didn’t know, and he wasn’t particularly keen on finding out. He just wanted to find this holocron and get the hell off this planet as soon as possible.

When morning finally came, Kylo had only managed to catch a few hours of sleep. He huffed in exhaustion. He knew that wasn’t good—whatever he saw last night was child’s play in comparison to what he would be dealing with at the temple. Kylo closed his eyes, trying to control his breathing. If there was one useful thing that Luke Skywalker had taught him, it was how to calm down when he was agitated—he didn’t even need to enter a full meditative state to do so. Kylo inhaled slowly, concentrating his thoughts on the present. He listened to the sounds of you getting out of bed and shuffling into the refresher. The sound of running water as you washed your face.

He continued to concentrate on your Force-signature. He listened to your steady heartbeat—the thumps rhythmically sounding—and tried to match his own heartbeat to yours. The technique worked and he felt himself begin to calm down, the unease slowly dissipating. Bringing you here was clearly the right idea. You were not physically in his immediate vicinity and already you had a calming effect on him. The next few days on the planet were going to be difficult and draining, but if he had you by his side, he knew that he would be able to get through it.

The sooner the two of you left this planet, the better.

Kylo sat up on the couch, rubbing his eyes, and watched as you exited the refresher and came into the living area.

“The refresher’s free, sir,” you said softly. Kylo nodded in response.

“We will need to eat something,” he stated, “Unfortunately there are few kitchen appliances on this base. The ones that exist are in the sub-basement. I would like to avoid going down there as much as possible.”

You could not agree more.

“There should be some freeze-dried rations in the cupboards, along with some protein bars. Have a few and bring the rest. We will need them.”

You nodded and shuffled off to find your unappetizing breakfast while Kylo stalked to the refresher. The breakfast you dug up was indeed as unappealing as you had expected it would be. Still, food was food, and you managed to consume two of the protein bars before Kylo stalked out of the refresher. You offered one to him, but he declined with a dismissive, “I’m not hungry.”

You frowned. You certainly weren’t one to tell the Supreme Leader what to do (and you definitely weren’t about to _mother_ him), but him not eating didn’t seem like the best of ideas. But it didn’t matter what you thought because Kylo just ignored your unvoiced concerns and strapped his saber to his hilt.

“The Dark Force Temple is the closest temple to our present location, about five kilometers northeast of here. The jungle is too dense for us to take speeders, and taking the TIE Silencer will prove more trouble than it’s worth, as there isn’t any place to land. We will have to walk.”

Oh joy.

This whole mission just keeps getting better and better.

Also, was this maniac seriously about to hike five kilometers, through the Amazon 2.0 without having _eaten anything_?!

God these space people were so weird.

“Let’s go Commander, if we are to be back by nightfall, we should leave now. Unless you’d rather spend the night in the jungle? Or even in the temple?” Kylo asked, slightly amused.

Hell no. 

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The space people had the dumbest naming conventions in the history of the known universe (Starkiller Base, Star Destroyer, Death Star, like seriously?), but let it not be said that the names were inaccurate. The Dark Force Temple was a dark temple...full of the dark force. Even a space cadet like you could tell that the Dark Side was strong here. It was kind of hard not to, what with the imposing black durasteel walls and Sauron-esque construction.

Your walk to the temple had been just as unpleasant as finding the temple itself. You weren’t a fan of bugs, and there were some large-ass bugs on Dromund Kaas. If you had known about these suckers, you would have happily declined Kylo’s generous offer of accompaniment and faced down Stabitha’s fury instead. As for Kylo, the bastard, the thick fabric of his tunic and pants were keeping him relatively unscathed from the bug bites. Sadly the same could not be said for you in your stupidly impractical, First Order uniform. The only reassurance you had that Kylo was probably just as miserable as you was that this planet, during the daytime. was _hot_. And if you were burning up, you could only imagine how Kylo must be handling the heat. But that asshole kept on strolling through the weeds and vines as if he were positively undisturbed by anything.

However, said façade would no longer hold now that you had approached the site of one very dark, full of Force, temple. The two of you stood there, staring up at the enormity of the complex. Kylo himself was almost frozen in place, from awe, amazement, or fear, you weren’t exactly sure. But after a few more moments of staring at this thing, you decided that you’d better get a move on so you could at least spend the night in an actual bed.

“So,” you began, “Can we, uh, just walk in?”

Kylo snorted at that.

“Surely you didn’t think it would be _that_ easy, did you, Commander?”

Hey, how were you supposed to know? It’s not like you understood how any of this Force shit worked anyway. You were just the unfortunate space cadet, brought along for the ride.

“Technically only Sith are allowed inside the temple,” Kylo began, “But there’s nothing written about non-sensitives entering the temple. You should be fine.”

Oh great.

Now he tells you.

“Are there any other rules that I could potentially break and die from that I should know about, sir?” you asked, teeth clenched.

Kylo rolled his eyes at that, looking far more annoyed than he frankly had any right to.

“Just stay close to me and don’t wander off. I’ll protect you.”

How very reassuring considering your entire job on this godforsaken planet was to make sure that Princess Palpatine didn’t have a meltdown. Kylo glared at you for that one, but you didn’t care.

“Let’s go, Commander,” he hissed. And with that, he strode up the steps of the temple, with you scrambling to keep up with him.

As it turns out, entering the temple actually _was_ as simple as just walking in (eat shit, Kylo), but the moment the two of you crossed the threshold, Kylo stumbled forward. He grabbed the edge of a rectangular pillar in an attempt to steady himself, his breathing heavy as he doubled over. Your heart started to race. Lovely. You had barely set foot in the Temple of Doom and already Kylo was having problems. Taking a deep breath, you gave him a moment to collect himself before venturing close to him.

“Sir,” you called softly, “Are you okay to continue?”

Kylo was clearly not okay, and asking him that would have been one of the dumbest questions you could have asked. But you needed Kylo operating at his best. You may be here to help him get ahold of himself, but you knew you would not be able to get off this planet if he fully collapsed from...whatever it was.

“I am fine, Commander,” Kylo said, his voice raspy, “I felt a strong rush of emotions come straight at me. I was unprepared.”

You nodded.

“That’s fine, sir. But let’s try to get out of here as fast as we can. Which way should we go?”

Kylo straightened up and took a few steadying breaths before responding.

“We will continue down the hall until it dead-ends, and then make a left. We’re ultimately looking for the crypt.”

Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

Kylo frowned. “Who are they?” he asked.

“Some people we will probably need to call upon if we are to make it out of this place alive,” you mumbled, “Come, sir, time’s a-wasting.”

With that, the two of you walked silently down the cavernous, dark hallway. The light from the original entrance began to dissipate, and Kylo ignited his saber so that the two of you could at least see. The red glow of the weapon cast an eerie shadow over the room. And if that wasn’t bad enough, you started to hear some faint noises in the distance. It sounded like...crying. Like a child’s soft whimpers.

_“Please,”_ the voice whispered, _“Please, please don’t.”_

Scared, you took a deep breath and briefly glanced at Kylo. If he had noticed the voice or your discomfort, he hadn’t given any indication. But then again, it was more likely that he was too wrapped up in whatever he was experiencing to pay attention to you. After all, you were the non-sensitive one. You shouldn’t be seeing or hearing anything, right?

....

...

..

.

Right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo! Be prepared for some action (in more ways than one!) in the next chapter. As always, thanks for sticking with me through my sporadic updates. Final exams approach, and alas we are not well-prepared. This entire quarantined semester feels very optional, heh. 
> 
> As always, please feel free to let me know what you think in the comments! Your feedback gives me life.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone. I am so sorry it has taken me this long to post an update. I do apologize upfront for this chapter being slightly shorter than the rest. I had this mostly written, but then life happened, and given my new schedule, it would have taken more time for me to have written everything that I wanted to put in this chapter. So I figured a shorter chapter was better than no chapter. I hope you enjoy nonetheless!

To say that the journey through the temple did not get much better was the understatement of the galaxy. As you and Kylo continued down through the narrow, winding hallways, the muffled cries you heard earlier grew louder. It was starting to scare you and creep you out, and you had no idea what to do. Kylo had enough to deal with and he didn’t need your wacked up sensibilities getting in the way of the mission. You were there to keep _him_ under control, not the other way around.

However, Kylo proved to be far more perceptive than you gave him credit for, mind-reading notwithstanding. He stopped dead in the center of the hallway, allowing you to very unbecomingly crash right into him.

“Commander,” he said softly. You blinked for a moment, trying to regain whatever semblance of dignity you might have left.

“Yes, sir?”

“Something is bothering you. What is it?”

Well that was a silly question, you thought. This entire place just _sucks_. Kylo rolled his eyes at that one (it was at this point that you noticed he had gone this entire day without wearing his helmet. Huh. Interesting). 

“We don’t have time, Commander. If something is distracting you, I need to know. Now.”

You sighed and began describing the voices you were hearing off in the distance. And how they were getting louder. Kylo’s eyes widened slightly, but he replaced any surprise with a blank expression, likely to keep you from freaking the fuck out (a ship that had long since sailed, to be frank).

“Do you see anything?” he asked. You shook your head, causing Kylo to relax.

“All right,” he sighed, “I don’t think it is anything to worry about right now. Just...stay close to me. If the voices get worse then let me know.”

Gulping, you decided to ask Kylo a question you weren’t sure you wanted the answer to.

“Do you hear them too, sir?”

Kylo gave you a long look before nodding slowly.

“Yes, Commander. I do.”

Uh oh. This wasn’t something you could write off as a manifestation of your own general insanity.

“...And, do you see something, sir?” You asked.

Kylo looked at you once more before shifting his gaze to a point just over your shoulder. He stared out into the distance for a few more seconds before bringing his eyes to meet yours.

“Yes.”

You let out a shaky breath. At least Kylo saw no point in trying to lie to you. That was reassuring at least.

“We should continue onward, Commander. And quickly. Before night falls.”

You sent a silent prayer to any Earth deity, that might possibly be listening, that the holocron you were after was in this temple, and you could leave tonight itself.

Heaven forbid you had to go explore _another_ one of these godforsaken places.

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“Rohini, you are scaring me, I need you to start from the beginning,” Zafra insisted, as she guided the shaking Rohini to the couch in her quarters. Once seated, Rohini took a nervous breath and pushed her hair out of her face.

“Can you get me some water first, please?” Rohini asked. Zafra nodded and went to the kitchen to grab a glass, which Rohini downed in a few gulps. Setting the glass down, Rohini turned to Zafra, taking another breath to steady herself.

“Your friend, the Commander,” she began, “She’s on a mission with Master Ren. Is that correct?”

“Yes, she is,” Zafra replied, “Why? Is something wrong? Have they called for help?”

Rohini shook her head.

“No. They haven’t reported anything, but they are in danger.”

Zafra narrowed her eyes.

“Rohini, you will have to be more specific. What _kind_ of danger? Visiting temples in Dromund Kaas isn’t exactly a safe activity.”

“The ship,” Rohini continued, “Master Ren’s TIE Silencer. Something is wrong with it. I—I think it’s rigged.”

Zafra’s eyes widened.

“ _What?_ ” she hissed, “Rigged? How? How do you know this? Why didn’t you say something?”

Rohini silenced Zafra’s barrage of questions with a harsh look.

“I had a dream,” she said, “The details are, admittedly, not very clear. Most of it is fuzzy. But I saw them both in the TIE about to take off. But there was a malfunction. Something backfired in the...weapons system? I can’t remember, I don’t know for sure, but something did backfire. The ship exploded with Master Ren and your friend in it.”

Zafra sucked in a breath.

“Rohini, that is serious. How do you know it was sabotage? Maybe...maybe something just merely overheated? Perhaps you are being paranoid.”

“I know what I saw, Zafra. Master Ren performs routine maintenance checks on his own ship personally, and your friend is a skilled engineer. If the ship was in no condition to fly, they would be able to figure it out quickly. Which means that whatever this malfunction is, it has to be undetectable by two individuals who are intimately familiar with the workings of a TIE Silencer. I can only suspect that whoever the mole is, they purposefully rigged the TIE Silencer to explode.”

Zafra let out a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding.

“Rohini, let’s say that you’re right. Do you know who the mole is? Or do you have an idea at least?”

Rohini shook her head.

“No, sadly I do not. But it is a member of the High Command. It must be. Nobody else would have access to information regarding Master Ren’s whereabouts and his missions.”

Zafra frowned, confused.

“Do you suspect General Hux? Or perhaps Captain Phasma?”

“No,” Rohini replied, “Phasma does not have a disloyal bone in her body. And Hux may butt heads with the Supreme Leader on a regular basis, but he is incredibly loyal to the Order. And despite appearances, he is also loyal to Master Ren.”

“Really?” Zafra asked, her eyes widening. Rohini let out a dark chuckle.

“Ah, I see you do not know,” Rohini said, “Do not repeat what I am about to say. When General Hux was young, he was emotionally and physically abused by his father Commandant Brendol Hux. It’s likely the reason why Hux is the way he is today.”

Zafra winced. Never in her life did she ever think she would feel bad for Hux.

“About five years ago Hux and Captain Phasma conspired together and devised a plot to kill Brendol Hux. I don’t know how they managed to do it, but they were successful. And it was an exceedingly clever plan. First Order scientists had no idea how he died, but the previous Supreme Leader, Snoke, had a suspicion that Hux was involved but had no way of proving it. He sent Master Ren to interrogate General Hux.”

“And I’m assuming Master Ren figured out that Hux was behind the plot,” Zafra asked.

Rohini nodded.

“Yes he did. But he didn’t tell Snoke.”

Zafra’s eyes widened. “Wait, Master Ren lied to Snoke...to protect General Hux?”

“That’s right. He never told the General explicitly why he lied for him, but after seeing Hux’s memories of his father...well, I think it is safe to say that Master Ren sympathized with him. It’s not as though Snoke or Luke Skywalker treated Master Ren terribly well, so you could say he has plenty of experience with being manipulated and abused by authority figures.”

Zafra took a shaky breath.

“I never knew,” she said quietly, “I always just assumed they hated each other, and just tolerated each other for the sake of the Order.”

Rohini laughed.

“Well that’s _certainly_ part of the case. They don’t hate each other, but they’re not _friends_. They have a mutual respect for one another and recognize that the Order needs them both. It’s not the most healthy relationship but it’s functional, for now at least,” Rohini replied.

There was silence, allowing both women to process the discussion of the past few minutes, then Zafra spoke again.

“If it isn’t Hux then who could it be? Not many members of the High Command have unfettered access to the schematics of Master Ren’s TIE Silencer, and even if they did, none of them have the specialized knowledge necessary to actually enact such an act of betrayal. If you are certain that it’s a member of the High Command, they would have had help.”

Rohini blinked.

“Yes, you’re right.”

She sat for a moment, pensive before gasping.

“Zafra, you said that Master Ren had ordered some upgrades on his ship prior to his mission, yes?”

Zafra’s jaw dropped, seeing where this discussion was going.

“Oh...oh no, do you think one of the technicians could have been behind this?” Zafra asked. Rohini turned pale.

“Zafra, this...whatever this is, is deeper than just a mere mole. He must have paid off one of the technicians to do something to Master Ren’s TIE Silencer. And if he paid off this one technician, there’s no telling how many others he may have in his employ.”

“We...we need to inform Hux. I can—,” Zafra started before Rohini stopped her, frantically using her hand to cover Zafra’s mouth.

“No, Zafra, nobody can know about this right now, not even Hux. Not even the other Knights. You are the _only person_ I trust.”

Zafra frowned.

“Rohini, if we don’t tell Hux then how do you propose to actually do something about this? You just said we can trust him.”

Rohini sighed. “It’s not Hux I am concerned about. It’s the rest of the High Command. I don’t know who the mole is. It could be anyone, including one of our fellow Knights.”

Zafra paled.

“What do you suggest then?” she asked.

Rohini closed her eyes for a bit before looking at Zafra with a weary face.

“So you believe me then? You truly believe me?” she asked. Zafra looked taken aback.

“Yes, of course I believe you. Why wouldn’t I?”

Rohini shook her head again, and stretched out on the couch, staring up at the ceiling.

“Nobody has believed me before,” she said, “I had a dream like this a few weeks before the Starkiller Base blew up. I tried to tell someone but most of the Knights laughed it off. Master Ren was the only one who took it somewhat seriously, but he got distracted with finding the map to Skywalker and that scavenger girl. We never got around to discussing it further. Little did he know that said scavenger girl and her friends were the cause of the destruction. Ironically, I also dreamt of Snoke’s death almost exactly one week before it happened. I just didn’t know who would be the one to kill him.”

Zafra placed a reassuring hand on Rohini’s shoulder.

“Rohini, it is possible that you may have the gift of foresight. Few Sith and Jedi have been able to see into the future on a consistent basis, but it isn’t unheard of. Perhaps this is what this is,” Zafra said.

Rohini sighed in frustration.

“Perhaps,” she snapped, “But what use is it, seeing into the future, if nobody actually listens to me?”

Zafra’s eyes softened.

“I believe you, Rohini. I’ll always believe you, and I am sorry if I have ever doubted you before.”

Rohini inclined her head slightly to get a better look at Zafra and smiled softly in response.

“Thank you, Zafra.”

“Now let’s get some sleep,” Zafra replied, “We have a lot of work to do, but it can wait until morning.”

.

.

.

.

.

You had always avoided graveyards back on Earth for the sole reason that they were just plain creepy. When your mother had died, you had been relieved to find out that she had requested to be cremated and have her ashes flung into the nearest river. It saved you the trouble of not only getting a plot of land to bury her, but also from the obligation of having to _visit_ said plot of land. You weren’t sure if you believed in spirits prior to joining the First Order, but this was one belief you were not prepared to test, and hanging around in graveyards seemed like a fantastic way to attract stuff you didn’t want.

But now that you were firmly ensconced in, what many would describe as, a _haunted temple_ , you could no longer deny that ghosts did exist. And they were very clearly interested in you for whatever batshit reason. You could safely say that this was nowhere close to what you had signed up for when you joined the First Order.

Thankfully, you still couldn’t see any of the spirits in question, but you could hear them. The disturbing crying you had heard earlier had now been dwarfed by a couple of other voices who were whispering. You had no idea what they were saying, and you were sure that the language was not Galactic Basic (which was remarkably similar to English, with a few grammatical and stylistic differences). Kylo had told you to try your best to ignore the voices you were hearing but it was easier said than done.

If you were being completely honest with yourself, it wasn’t the fact that you were hearing voices that scared you—it was what this whole rigamarole _implied_. You had lived the majority of your adult life not knowing about this strange thing aptly named the Force. Once you had learned about it, you were also firmly convinced that you were not Force-sensitive. You’d checked multiple times (because seriously who doesn’t want to pick things up with their mind and throw them at people?). But this whole situation was throwing this I’m-not-Force-sensitive thing completely out of the airlock.

Kylo had said that Force-sensitives would be able to see and hear things in the temple. You could hear things in the temple. Ergo logic dictated that you must be, at least slightly, Force-sensitive, right?

But then again Kylo had also said that even the most non-sensitive of the non-sensitives still had trouble being on a planet like Dromund Kaas. And this trip was also proving that even Kylo didn’t know everything.

So this whole potential Force-sensitivity thing was likely just a fluke—a result of being on a planet that was heavily imbued with the Force.

At least that’s what you told yourself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed that! Once again, I do apologize for the long wait. I only just finished classes, and then about a week ago I moved apartments. And to make things that much more difficult, I was without internet for a full week (because Comcast sucks!). So that was fun. Anyway, I promise this next update won't take me a month (yikes) to get out! And we'll see a conclusion to the Dromund Kaas mission. Thank you all for bearing with me, you are all amazing! 
> 
> As always, please feel free to let me know what you think in the comments. Comments give me life.


	16. Update: Will be deleted once next chapter is posted

Hi everyone, so sorry if you were looking for a chapter...unfortunately this is not it. Just wanted to let you guys know why it has been such a long time since I've updated this little fic. Rest assured, I have _not_ abandoned it, and this story will be finished, just at a slower pace that I had hoped. 

As I've mentioned before, I'm currently in graduate school, and in the middle of June, I was authorized to return to research. Unfortunately, as many of you know, the virus has been getting worse here in the U.S., and while my state is not one of the main "hot-spots" if you will, cases are still on the rise. Thankfully, I am not sick, and my friends and family are safe as well. This has, unfortunately, put a lot of pressure on those of us working in labs to space out experiments, socially distance, and whatnot. As a second year PhD student, I'll be sitting for my qualifying exams in January 2021, which includes a thesis proposal defense. So, my advisor has been pushing me and my fellow labmates to get as much data as we can for our proposals given that we are very likely going to be shut down again in September/October. As such, I've been running around like a crazy woman trying to make the most of the summer and take advantage of the fact that I have no classes or teaching responsibilities. 

You all have been amazing in your support of me as a writer and in my sporadic fic updates. I have a good chunk of the next chapter written, but things got a little nuts and I haven't had good, solid time to devote to finishing it. Rest assured though, it is coming and I'm not abandoning this story :-) I just humbly ask for your continued patience as we all sort through the lovely mess our dear friend, the coronavirus, has left us. 

I hope all of you and your loved ones are staying safe and well <3


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